


fear of the water

by lambmeat



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Denial of Feelings, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn, Violence, Werewolf John
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2020-12-28 09:55:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21134804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lambmeat/pseuds/lambmeat
Summary: Smoking by a tree, whole body oddly aching something fierce, unfamiliar with it all around him and himself particularly. The approach is met with a weary affirmative to accompany him, and frequently, he finds Arthur making sidelong glances at him, trying to peer at his face through a dark curtain of wild hair. It makes his skin itch something fierce, and he’s tearing to bite at him when Arthur calmly interrupts.“Those healing up mighty fast, huh?” he says, a lightheartedness to his tone. When John turns to acknowledge him, the anger under his skin simmering to nothing as intent became clear, that his stares were inspecting and yielded a satisfaction, Morgan’s hand finds its way through his hair to reveal his sprawling scars.It burns, painfully so, where Arthur’s fingers touch him, and it’s startling enough of a sensation to distract himself from the gesture in and of itself. Action reaches him faster than a response on his tongue, and he unthinkingly knocks the hand off his face with a lazy bat of his own."Yeah, guess so.”





	1. you’re dislocated; don’t be like that

There’s an itch that grows under John’s skin, not where something has bubbled under his flesh annoyingly, but like something is trying to breach his dense surface. It's hovering, like a mosquito in the berating half-desert sun, blistering with one tree of mercy and countless pesky insects to swat in its shade.

Obscured from the burning gaze of the sun, the attention shifts to another mortal grievance. Any other time, between running errands and running from the seemingly inescapable heatwave, it would have been too minute to make room in his thoughts for. Now, John Marston acknowledges the demanding buzz of the bug, seeking his attention. 

There’s a name for it. Arthur has never  _ not _ been acknowledged by John. When so many formative years are spent shadowing another man, there’s an intimacy of insider information not readily accessible without experience. For them, they comprehend how they tick respectively, as they’ve taken themselves apart and rebuilt each other with their words so many different times, as a child would upon being gifted a curious, new toy. 

Years have taught John one thing about that man, and that his social interactions run on an energy bank. Only so much can be drained before Arthur grows standoffish and removes himself entirely. As though interacting is a gradually heated pot and he’s holding his hand to it until he cannot keep from folding his hand in and nursing it in private pages of weathered paper bound by leather, swaddled in the comfort of darkness and his own cot. 

Now, more than ever, it seems as though conversations with as many words as the few syllables comprising his name are all it takes for him to withdraw into his shell. All the extra time is spent with his nose to the grindstone- more so than usual. Pencil and paper became ax and reins. To evade such conversations, he worked ever more diligently. 

It falls in line with the ebbing of John’s patience for him, stretched thin by the few interactions they  _ do _ share. Most of it comprises of bickering over petty things that won’t matter the morrow after to soft spots tender to touch being struck carelessly. In the past three years, the stain of their former relationship keeps getting wiped and scrubbed at angrily with incessant tension and conflict, but the closer the grand scheme draws, the taunter the wire grows between them, the cable holding them together threatening to snap and whip everyone around them in the fallout.

From  _ golden boy’s loud mouth spooked the deer yet again  _ to  _ got that yellow look n y’er eyes like y’er gonna run again, John.  _ Vocal laments about botched hunts that irked Marston for the whole hour to yelling matches and near fisticuffs.

And it’s always the same topics.  _ Treat y’er wife better, John  _ or  _ don’t run from that kid again, John-  _ as if he has any room to speak. Depending on the temperature of the water that night, saying just that will either erupt in a flurry of rage or the fight in Arthur’s eyes will die out in an instant, mutedly agreeing and turning away. The subjects were equally sore subjects, and Arthur couldn’t stop himself from diving at them, any chance he gets, even if it stings worse for him. 

However little tolerance John held for a grouchy Arthur Morgan burned down to fumes. Any non-inflammatory order is met with the same resistance as always unless it’s the simple command to  _ piss off, _ which is more often than not. In turn for the pointless fights he started and the constant deflections, John saw it fit to stand idle and passively ignore him like a kid brother punishing his older sibling. 

The gang was a hive of busy bees as talk of a grand heist started to build and more work was tossed to the grunts.  _ A ferry,  _ full of riches. Enough to set everyone up for the remainder of their lives. 

During those spiels, he would turn and gaze at Abigail, because that is what is expected of him, and meet her eyes, brimming with a love he couldn’t hope to level with.

Morals were soaring, with everyone celebrating to a life of paradise to come in the near future, to mourn what they’ll leave behind in the distant past. Hosea made a quip and said the gang has drunk more alcohol in festivities for this one heist than what the heist will pull in, and that earns him a joyous round of cheers. 

Everyone soaks up the alcohol like dry leaves in a dry spell, as that is what their soon-to-inherit fortune makes all other schemes feel like: a drought, of spirit and funds alike. At the campfires, there is exuberant festivities, and dancing, and smiles on everyone’s faces that are present. The gramophone serenades them off to bed each night, and even Reverend Swanson musters a few, genuine smiles.

There are few who aren’t present during the celebrations. Abigail, of course, took to tending to little Jack from the sidelines as her own party in private, but Hosea and Arthur would be seated at the scout fire with heads low and bent together. John would find himself searching for Arthur’s eyes amongst them, forgetting he should still be steaming at a comment of Arthur’s previous, but in the heat of celebration such pettiness washes off his hands easily. It doesn’t seem that way for the latter, who scowls at him with a bone-deep weariness only he can share so well with Hosea. 

No one tells him to do  _ everything,  _ and it comes off that no one appreciates that he still does it. The physical labor around camp,  _ everyone’s  _ least favorite chore, is handled religiously by Arthur. Charles, supposedly the best tracker in camp, has been given a reprieve from supporting the gang so Arthur can disappear for a few hours without losing his constant productivity. He’ll return, as always, laden with game and sweat from the boiling sun.

It’s always Arthur Morgan and his self-made messiah complex shaving bits of himself off for others. No one is asking him to, and they can manage just fine without his selfish sacrifices.

John may be an oblivious fool, but it takes a truly blind man to miss how Arthur has become a workhorse at his own hands, how providing has become a grueling chore. Strapped into the wagon, he’s fighting the dead weight of an absent team he has bitten and chased away. John can only ponder why that is, and why he chooses a solitary life surrounded by family, willing to cut down a forest of men for him. 

It’s found that Marston doesn’t care, content to share scowls back and forth. He’ll watch him run himself ragged and offer little aid. A whiskey around a game of cards, a cigarette or two if he’s smoked his supply away in one day, and to diligently watch his back as a brother in arms. 

Even with his pettiness stifling his ministrations, he still takes stock of how Arthur has begun to chew the ends of his cigarettes and spits the tobacco grounds more often, or the obsessive maintenance of his beloved weaponry, or how his eyes cast a shadow under him in the echo of sleep lost. It’s a stark outlier to the encompassing moral of the gang, only reflected by Hosea and, occasionally, in the sheltered canvas of the tent and blanket of the dark night, Dutch himself, whenever whatever sits poorly with the pair of them, lets itself be known.

In the end, nothing deterred Dutch’s valiant plan from going into action. It might’ve been the unprincipled whisperings of Micah into his ear whenever he thought Hosea wasn’t looking, seeking to override his voice reason, but the plan was carried out in full.

That was until everything went to shit. It all came to a head, and they were running again. Half the gang was left in the dark as to what happened, and even those who bore witness to the chain of events that led to an all-out evacuation of the gang into the next state and beyond were struck clueless as to what they saw,  _ why. _ The women were prepared beforehand to embark on a long ride, wagons packed and waiting at camp for the heroes’ brave return to spoil them in riches only to receive a frightened call to head north as fast as deer with forest fires burning their heels.

The ash falling in the failed expedition followed them, disintegrating into the powdery white snowfall of the skies or Northern Ambarino. It blots out the sun, stiffens the horses’ joints, brings a cough to the weaks’ lungs, and does nothing to staunch the wounds of the fallen.

John is speechless for days it seems, watching as Davey grows as pale as the blankets of snowbanks encompassing them, thoughts drifting back to Sean and Mac, both missing in action, or Jenny, the poor girl shot down right in front of their very own eyes.

The pain is mirrored in Arthur’s eyes, those ocean eyes, deep and tumultuous. There must've been something he missed, wonders if he could’ve done something, that maybe there was something Arthur saw that he didn’t. Any of those thoughts are quelled, however, by the begrudging line running through his head;  _ “he should’ve asked for help if he needed it so bad,”  _ and the guilt washes away. 

This is far from the first time that disaster has struck the gang, although it has been a long while. John’s forced to consider those around him, and not himself as to how he lives.

For them, he nods his head and trudges his horse through the snow when he’s called to be a scout, search for anything they can call a shelter, and those heavy blue eyes followed his receding figure out until he couldn’t see the lantern’s light anymore.

John sees those eyes again after they come for him, his horse’s knees deep in a fresh snowfall. Searching for a temporary sanctuary for his family, he sees Arthur’s eyes once more, but not before he sees others. 

They’re feral eyes shrouded by thick coats and gnashing teeth that pry him from his horse and try to tear into him. A swarm of wolves, bigger than anything he’s ever seen, came at once in a swarm that spooks his horse and knocks him clear into the air to fall amongst their ranks. As much as he likes to think as any comfort in the darkest moments, he knows that his trusted mare didn’t make it far enough. 

The pain was unlike anything else he’s ever experienced; no gunshot or burn or broken bone could ever compare to the white-hot pain of their fangs, almost like electricity shooting through his nerves, as the alpha’s jowls parted in attempt after attempt to pick his bones clean.

For the nasty rip John got, he delivered just as well: fumbling for his knife garnered the results he hoped for. Wrenching his arm free, he drove the blade into the pack leader’s skull, the bone splintering sickeningly loud in the sudden silence aside his own labored breathing.

And yet it didn’t die. Simply, it ceased it’s assault upon his person to peer at him, a filthy, black ichor draining from its head, and in unison, all the other beasts turned after it’s departure to follow.

He has never seen anything like that, and he’ll be eternally grateful for the rest of his living, numbered days to never see the wide, snapping jaws of carnivorous teeth, seeking him out or the empty, yellow eyes of that wolf.

Adrenaline now alive in his system, however delayed, he licks his cold lips as he catches his breath and grimaces at the sickeningly sweet taste that found its way into his mouth from a wound not his own. Opposite of his injured cheek, it’d be hard for it to be his own. 

John has no time to dwell on consuming the cursed wolf’s blood, as he fears their return more than the unsavory taste of its ichor. He scrambles up the hill and waits, waits for one of two things, and thanks the heavens and the forsaken god above that it wasn’t darkness to meet him in his frozen purgatory, but brimming ocean blue eyes and a covering chirp to hide how scared the other man is, too. 

John is slow to recover, but by all accounts, he should be dead. His body burned hot enough to heat the frost-bite threatening the air of the cabin, and his body lay ablaze like that for near a week. Many joined his side during those frightening days: his supposed wife and child, his adoptive fathers, and his closest gang members aside from those who came to repatch his bandages. 

The most prominent amongst the haze was Arthur, slouched in his chair, uncomfortably asleep and not for the way his neck was craned. Arthur, oh so carefully feeling his forehead with the back of his hand for his body’s temperature. Arthur, simply looking at him with a terrified gentleness and soft words spoken cowardly to a body he presumes to be asleep but lay listening, too tired to open his eyes or to make a crack at his mirrored fragility;  _ “a couple of scratches and big, bad Arthur morgan is fussing up a storm.” _

All that kindness, reserved specifically for John, is scarier than the wolves, he reasons. It doesn’t melt away like everyone else’s when he stands up once more. 

After that, he was up and moving around and it remains, hidden but glaring now that he’s seen it just once. It’s in his gestures and his words, however diluted by easy quips and jokes. The frequency of their fights drastically plummeted to where it’s every odd day they find something worth a few patronizing exchanges, but nothing more. To think that Arthur is sparing him for his recovery makes him bitter to the core, yet there is a relief to be found in the tides of their kinship when waves aren’t rocking the boat nonstop. 

Smoking by a tree, whole body oddly aching something fierce, as if Marston were a growing boy again or a newborn fawn, unfamiliar with it all around him and himself particularly. Arthur picks his way over to join him on a ‘lazy’ day, meaning he’s carved time to stand and smoke idly. The approach is met with a weary affirmative to accompany him, and frequently, he finds Arthur making sidelong glances at him, trying to peer at his face through a dark curtain of wild hair. It makes his skin itch something fierce, and he’s tearing to bite at him when Arthur calmly interrupts. 

“Those healing up mighty fast, huh?” he says, a lightheartedness to his tone. When John turns to acknowledge him, the anger under his skin simmering to nothing as intent became clear, that his stares were inspecting and yielded a satisfaction, Morgan’s hand finds its way through his hair to reveal his sprawling scars. Draped over the high cheekbone and down his jaw in two parallel tracks was his most eye-catching attraction; scars, soon to lose their red puffiness to a ghastly apparition of near-death and triumph.

It burns, painfully so, where Arthur’s fingers touch him, and it’s startling enough of a sensation to distract himself from the gesture in and of itself. Action reaches him faster than a response on his tongue, and he unthinkingly knocks the hand off his face with a lazy bat of his own. 

John’s tongue dries tackily to the roof of his mouth, forcing him to wet it to speak, “Yeah, guess so.” 

Arthur retracts his hand uncomfortably, self-conscious suddenly as if he’s spoken too much without saying damn near anything at all. Flicking his half-burnt cigarette into the leaf litter and crushing it out under his boot toe, he pulls back and settles on a friendly, professional clap on the shoulder. Ducking his head with a trained, polite smile, he’s making for a hasty exit, “glad to have you back on your feet, Johnny. Gave us a right scare.” 

Watching Morgan’s receding silhouette, he can’t help but mull over the stinging of Arthur’s touch; his fingers felt like a hot brand, even though only the tips of his fingers graced his skin, and while John never stole a moment to check, he imagines there to be a searing red mark on his flesh wherever he was touched. 

It’s jarring enough to realize that it isn’t an isolated incident, where mere touch had made him violently shy away. As of late, John has been evading the intimate touches even of his wife, be it an attempt at a consoling shoulder massage or the chaste press of her lips to his own. It falls akin to a match being held up to his skin, where Abigail’s physical presence, as well as anyone else’s, would fall on his person. The first time, it had been so agitating that he snapped, confused and seemingly blistering from her love.

As he tends to do with nothing about him calling for his attention, he sat and smoked until he had burned through half a pack of cigarettes and the most adverse effects of the afternoon sun before he reintegrated himself. Not five paces towards the stew pot, he hears Abigail calling after him. It’s such a call, unlike many others, and it signifies she’s in a good mood and he hadn’t done anything wrong- not that he has had the opportunity to run amok. Lured into the safety of his tent, he can feel the charged tension in the way she holds herself. 

“You’re tenser than a wire, John,” she croons as she settles him on the cot's edge. She saddles herself behind him, motherly hands gliding across his everyday shirt to frame the nape of his neck. 

Normally, the press of her thumbs into the meaty muscle of his neck parallel to his spine reduces him into a pliant creature, and she knows as much. It’s always a predecessor to any intimacy they share, but here, the moment she lays her hands on him, he jumps and shifts forward to rub at himself where she had ghosted.

It had come as a shock to both of them, and “y’ain’t hurt, are you?” Abigail asks wearily. John shakes his head, “no-no, just, I don’t know. Bein’ weird.” She scoffs, but it’s lighthearted, “y’er always bein’ weird.” It’s said like it’s consolation, and Abigail reaches forward once more. Initially, it felt like his skin graced the ripe metal of a lighter’s flint after the flame had sat burning for too long. This time, when she gets a good grip on him John nearly swings an elbow back to knock himself loose.

It wasn’t so blinding that he missed the slack-jawed and wide-eyed hurt across her delicate features, though he wishes it was. There were no words of curiosity and concern this time around, just silence between them as she slid from the cot and dusted herself off to take her leave. 

Abigail had receded into a quiet, acknowledging shell for the rest of the night, and deep into the morning. Her injured eyes would accost his from the moment she pulled herself away at his growl to when she sampled the camp’s pot of coffee, a ways across the site.

It was odd, by all accounts, for Arthur to so much as grace him with his time, but such softness typically constrained to his eyes manifesting into the physical realm spooked him. One bitten, twice shy, and the novelty of the ministration evaporates wholly as the only connection drawn is not the shared affection but the idea of touch equating pain. Even the peculiarity of his observation pertaining himself was lost on him, becoming bereft of contact, until it could no longer be ignored. 

John greets Abigail, who takes a fair amount of pity on the lost look in his eyes, and yet has grown tired of trying to console him if all she was to get in return is untethered and displaced aggression. So many times, he wishes he could just spill his guts, tell her what was wrong with him, but he doesn’t even know himself, and if he did, he has never been too good about opening up anyway. He suffers through the phantom burning that has begun to plague him even without the touch of another person. He suffers from the Charley horses in his limbs with strained grimaces when it becomes too much at times.


	2. that's a madness that breaks faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here and now, he’s silent, scared to speak lest he says too much and gives too much of himself away. In the willingness to accept apology and commiseration from others, he displays a unique weakness in his own eyes that sorely needs correcting or it just may be his downfall.
> 
> Weakness breeds interest, like a wounded animal tracked by wolves, following the trail of blood through snowbanks and mountains. If they get too close, he will fall, as he did on the mountain tops not even three months ago.

Amidst the pain, crashing over John not as waves of a tsunami but of the ruthless surge of a rushing river, there was relief. The restlessness that pricked his skin like the spray of angry water over rocks sloughed off in sheets under the cover of a full moon.

It had all come to a head after a week of sleepless nights and long days. The gang was caught up in the celebrations, commemorating Sean’s safe return, when he turned to remove himself. Still on strict orders to rest easy and heal wholly, he spills out of camp with a distinct feeling, a voice whispering in his head, vague and pressing; _ “Something is wrong.” _

Ambling away from camp and ripping through the vegetation on his way down the hill to hide from the scouts, he can’t sustain his movements on the fuel of fear for long. Eventually, at least sure that the distance is great enough to go unnoticed, he greets the Earth with hands fisting the moss, dirt molding under his fingernails, and spit flying from his lips as John groans gutturally.

In the beginning, when the torment was at its lowest, thoughts of the others drifted into his straining consciousness. Questions, regrets, and seemingly fleeting dreams grace his thoughts as he’s flooded with the stomach-churning fear that he was dying.

John’s skin slipped and stretched, tingling briefly like stubble growing in before flourishing in full crops of thick, dark pastures. The burning sensation was ripe and hotter than ever, but with the breeze shuffling through the alien texture, it vanished like a dying ember. Stranger still were his bones, feeling as though they were not being broken, but- as gently as one could- melded into foreign shapes. Marston’s face elongated and he could have sworn _fell_ _off _before it registered as inherently wrong and still instinctually right in its new form. 

The changes grew almost too much to bear right at the crest of the hill, and he lost consciousness until the moon was deep in the pool of the sky, drowning amongst the stars.

When Marston comes to, he is near to where he first blacked out. In his panic, he had shed the clothes he wore to combat the burning as change overtook him, and he didn’t have to look further than five feet from the bushes he passed out in to locate them. 

Grateful he wouldn’t have to be returning to camp naked, he settles back into the leaf litter. Now more conscious and alert than he was before, he lets his environment bleed into his thoughts. Cold, but not from the draft of nudity, and wet, even though it hadn’t rained. Even with his face near the earth, it didn’t quite smell like damp dirt he was sticking his nose in; metallic, more coppery than natural.

Heaving in a heavy breath, he’s hit with a realization. It doesn’t come in a wave, but sudden, like a gunshot.

His face is coated in blood. It’s tacky, caked to his beard, and coating his lips. 

The wet sweep of his tongue feels alien. For a moment, he’s dissociating. Nothing feels- _ looks _like him, but everything corresponds correctly.

As a man scarcely sees his own nose except for double vision and reflections, John aims his eyes to the middle of his face to look at the black object looming before his eyes.

It’s patterned like a dappled horse’s coat, with a sheen of moisture to it that may or may not be the blood he’s found on himself. Tentatively, scared, he lifts a hand, heavier than he remembers, to try to understand it from a tactile approach.

The hand is tipped in doggish nails and thick, rough pads that startle the sensitive nose before him.

John reels, startled to his feet. He hits low branches of the pines around him, and they catch in the shortest hairs of his head.

The water of the river shimmers with moonlight, echoing across faint ripples from nighttime insects. Stumbling blindly, he collapses at the water’s edge. The pristine water clouds with impurity as he hovers over it.

Like a trick of the eyes, he doesn’t see himself. At first, it seems like a waking night terror, the very thing that haunts him becoming him. And yet, as John raises a hand up to touch a strong snout and fall under thick hackles, it feels too real to be a twisted dream.

Bracing his hands in the cold water, letting the temperature act as a reigniting shock to his system, starting his heart again, he expects a tidal wave of panic to take him. Staring at his reflection gets harder as the water gets murkier, the blood running off his hands (_ paws? _) tainting the river.

Instead, the cold fills his system with calm, the gentle current billowing through the fur of his arms. Even in the poor light, the color of the fur is reflective of the night sky; deep in blue hues yet still closer to black than anything else. The scent of blood is dampened by the sand and silt of the riverbank, being stirred by the pads of his palms. Settling easier on his haunches, lowering himself to lay down, he’s taken by the sensations around him like a young lover in new spring. The romanticism of the world sweeps him away the same way he sets himself partially submerged in the river, to be kissed by the constant stream that never ceases and never disturbs.

The snout John was so unsettled by rests against the shallow bank, and the cool tide brushes the stain of blood off like a partner’s caring hand. Letting his eyes flutter shut, he listens to the owl’s cry from a mile off and the sound of hoof step somewhere in the East.

Behind his eyelids, snippets pop up like the stray droplets of water that hit him when the water gets too excited. 

A body, indiscernible in the description written in repression. It lays in the road, reeking of raw meat- a deer, perhaps, that had let it’s guard down. There is no sting of gunpowder in his nostrils, no ringing of his ears, no voices, or screams that fall into place in the empty spaces of his memory.

Lulled to drowsiness, with new muscles weary and bones aching deeply, he lifts his great head out of the comfort of the water. Exposed to the air, a chill settles in, tight to his core. While there is no way his clothes will fit over his disfigured body, he can at least return to them and find comfort in familiarity.

The woods remained untouched since his a quick exit, and he finds the specific shrub that politely held his clothes while he was away. The brambles don’t irritate him through the thick coat of fur, and he burrows under the sprawling roots of pine trees and the interwoven branches of bushes. As if stubbornly refusing his hulking size, John squeezes himself into as small of a ball as he can, like a loyal dog resting at the feet of the master pine tree. 

Smaller details escaped him because it felt as though _ this was right. _There was no need to question what wasn’t wrong. Somehow, aside from a spare moment of adrenaline, this coat felt like home- more of a home than his skin has been for well over a week.

So John doesn’t notice how the chill is quick to evaporate thanks to the layers of fur he’s come to wear, nor the way his limbs can now fold into awkward angles. The only thing on his mind is fitting his snout beneath his tail to ward off the night’s chill.

When he woke up, sleep seeming to have overtaken him instantaneously, his surroundings were _ very much irritating. _ Of the bush he had chosen, the tiny thorns were dragging across his bare skin, and the rough bark of the roots scratched him as he moved. There was no more fur to protect him from their jabs, and although he had shrunk by almost three sizes, the space was still very much cramped and uncomfortable.

Cursing, he struggles out of the brambles to stumble into the small opening between the trees and shrubs, stark naked. 

It all hits him again. John scurries to his feet to gather his clothes. Adorning his union suit and trousers, he barely remembers to grab his hat from the dirt before he’s creeping back into camp. To the God he believes in convenience, he prays the watch has fallen asleep.

Awakening early to the dew still dripping off the grass blades, he meets no one on his way to his tent. John takes stock of the hungover passed out in odd places, the beer and whiskey bottles that were now empty and strewn about, and the collective snore of the camp.

Not until he settles into his cot, wiping a hand over his face to wipe the sheen of nervous sweat off, does it sink in what happened.

Sleep didn’t come back to him, so he sat in his cot, alone in the dark, waiting for the rest of the gang to rouse. 

John just stares at his hands, folding them over themselves as the day breaks.

Nothing comes of it. Emerging from his retreat, the world was slowly picking back up. Some of the late ones were being roused by someone or another, mainly for getting in the way of life. Others were already tidying the camp, finding the bottles hidden in peculiar places and making sure everything was returned to their rightful spots.

There is a brief question of whether John would appreciate a cup of coffee, as it seems his hangover is particularly rough. And then another one of his health. And then silence. There were no suspicious glints in passing eyes or tepid looks.

Life started where it left off, and he receives little grief over his brief absence. John’s brief stint of paranoia was proven ungrounded by the act of nothing happening. There were some ribs about him slinking off into the woods, the jack making him rowdy or him not holding his liquor, and he grins and bears it.

If all he was going to be accused of was something off-color, then John was secure that his secret was safe. No one was any the wiser, but he felt just the same as them; whatever had happened was still shrouded in mystery. Marston was inclined to accept that it was some fever dream, that the alcohol he consumed was in some way tainted.

Even if it generated more fights between him and his sweetheart, he was satisfied in secrecy. In a night of celebration, his abrupt absence cut deep. John never liked intermingling with the core of the festivities and preferred to stay along the sidelines where it was quieter. That generally involved sticking to Abigail and drinking beside her and Jack, indulging her with his company for however long until something flared up and their volume scaled past that of the party’s.

Coming to terms that she would spend the party alone with little Jack, and hearing such rumors of his little escapades away was salt rubbed in the wound. The following few days and nights, she bristled at him if he drew too close; narrowed eyes and tight words.

There was solace in it. It was _ normal- _her anger and his isolation were both staples in their lives, prerequisites of normalcy. 

One afternoon, a half dozen sunrises since his life was cast into darkness and secrecy, he had grown comfortable once again. With that, he had thoroughly smashed the eggshells he was previously been tiptoeing upon around Abigail. It’s clean-cut: his regular amount of brashness is too much for her today, and she wishes to be left alone. There are quite a few more words traded, but the general message was still clear as day. Abiding by her will, John distances himself from her and interjects himself into everybody else’s day.

At the moment, no one seems to mind him, or his relative silence. At the table he’s planted himself at, he’s picking at the morning stew in the company of some of the camp’s wisest: Charles, Hosea, and Arthur. Not surprisingly, the camp seniors have gotten Charles into a more talkative mood, a feat seemingly impossible to all other camp members.

Smith is at ease with the company around him, something rare in and of itself, and he lets the man fill the space with his sparse words. At the moment, he’s recounting the story he heard from a local saloon in the town they’ve settled closest to, Valentine.

Thus far, he’s spent great detail describing the ways the man was in, near crazed and drinking his heart out, “claiming a ‘_ wolf-man _’ ate his brother alive,” Charles says matter-of-factly. Arthur shares an incredulous look at Charles, who doesn’t return his reaction with outward rejection but a follow-up statement: “My mother spoke of them. Our tribe had hunters of such beings.”

Hosea nods sagely, “I have only read about them. Beasts taller than bears standing on their hind legs, with giant teeth and an _ insatiable _appetite.” His emphasis is for humor, but it sits like poison in the depths of John’s stomach.

“While traveling, I’ve met other tribes with similar figures,” Charles goes on, acknowledging Hosea’s words with a nod, “some wear the skins of wolves, some drink the blood of a cursed wolf.”

John sits chewing on his spoon in the absence of his words, the metal bending under the persistent grinding.

“I’d enjoy hearing more about it sometime, Charles,” Hosea says before breathing in reverence, “those stories have always fascinated me.”

“You’re just looking for your next trophy.”

“Maybe so.”

“Sounds like bullshit.” Up until that point, Arthur has been as mute as John has. The topic had gotten under his skin enough to vocalize his grievances, however, and the table shifts to look at him. “Not you, Charles,” he quickly specifies with a placating palm, “fell’a probably saw a bear an’ couldn’t see too well.”

Charles shows no outward offense to the take and shrugs it off. “I’m inclined to believe him. Bears don’t frequent this area.”

“He’s just makin’ shit up.”

“Bear or wolf-man, I heard screams nights ago by the river,” Hosea hums, negating the back-and-forth easily. As he lifts the tin mug to his lips to sip his coffee, Arthur visibly recoils in disbelief and sets his spoon down.

“Wait, here?” Arthur is off-put for a moment, mulling over the new information. Besides him, John fidgets with his lukewarm breakfast with little interest, more invested in his own racing heartbeat and racing thoughts. That couldn't have been him, could it? John doesn't remember a single thing, and screams and fear would stick like fly like honey in his mind.

Aside from the metal flaking into his mouth from constantly worrying it between his teeth, the thoughts leave a bad taste in his mouth and he loses his appetite.

“There ain’t any big predator in this area, barely any wolves,” Arthur says, relenting to Charles earlier words of locational significance. 

In the many mysterious ways he works, Arthur casts a sidelong glance at John beside him at the mention of wolves from his own lips, weighing the impact of his words. There’s a level of introspection at play not typical of many men of the camp, nor the world, for that matter. It would be seen as an act of consideration, reliably guessing that the creature would be a particularly sore spot for quite a while, although for different reasons than what he has figured.

He finds John all over tense like a hare ready to spring. Brows knitting, he ignores the conversation in favor of pulling his pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket and gingerly setting them beside John’s hand as a point. It’s the only reassurance he feels qualified to give, and he leaves it at that.

The attention feels like a pill in John’s throat, hard to swallow and burning.

John notices the pack second to the long stare, and timidly takes the pack into his hands and fishes a couple sticks out before returning them.

Arthur never forgot his favorite tobacco brand. Hard to find, generally reserved for the richer folks confined to the finer walks of life. It’s heavier, richer than most companies care to sink money into in the way that it has been infused with honey. He had come across a heap of it in some affluent man’s homestead not too long ago, and had taken the stray tobacco along with the cash reaped.

Now, he was by no means the best at rolling his own cigarettes, but they stayed in one piece and didn’t shed too many leaves rolling around in the pack he had reused.

Inspecting it, John can see the mediocre craftsmanship, but keeps his mouth shut. 

“Could have been the small pack that lives here,” Hosea says with a noncommittal shrug, “maybe the feller was particularly out of it and imagined up the extravagance of it all.”

The quiet movements from the opposite side of the table draw enough attention from Hosea for him to evaluate his audience again. Reviewing what he saw, the small act of attentiveness on Arthur’s part and the rigidness of John’s posture, he’s quick to put the pieces of the puzzle together for the bigger picture.

“All this talk of wolves bringing up some nasty memories, huh?” Hosea says, sighing into his mug and expelling hot steam across his cheeks. They’re tinted a rosy color from the steam and from the cough that seems to haunt him mercilessly, aggravated by recent travels. “Sorry, John. Should’ve been more considerate,” he says, and there's no humor, no ulterior motive; all a genuine apology, “it all just happened- all of it.”

While Charles himself doesn’t weigh in, there is a marked softness to the normal creases of his features; an understanding in the depths of those marvelously dark eyes. Not an apology, and not pity, but a misplaced understanding of what he perceives as John’s mental ailments.

Normally, it’d irritate John and provoke that need to remind the other men in the gang of his strength and unshakable will- keen to dispel anything easily misconstrued as pity. Here and now, he’s silent, scared to speak lest he says too much and gives too much of himself away. In the willingness to accept apology and commiseration from others, he displays a unique weakness in his own eyes that sorely needs correcting or it just may be his downfall.

Weakness breeds interest, like a wounded animal tracked by wolves, following the trail of blood through snowbanks and mountains. If they get too close, he will fall, as he did on the mountain tops not even three months ago.

It all comes full circle, and his temper flares.

“I’m _ fine, _” he grits out. Hosea sighs, already anticipating the pushback from concern. Rather than push it further, he just takes a long drink from his coffee and clasps his hands together with a look of fellow feeling pointed at John. 

“Alright,” Charles intervenes, the hostility of the environment misplacing him. No longer was it the quiet circle he has opened himself up to, but one where he walks on eggshells for John. Collecting his bowl in hand, not quite finished with it yet, he takes his leave with a good-bye to the table.

John simmers, hackle bristled and walls raised. The spoon has been dimpled with tooth marks and rendered useless. He considers it a job well done, dispelling any thought of the conversation with his effrontery and effectively chasing half the table away. 

Recently, he’s discovered that isolation isn’t all that bad- something he has recognized years ago but only now profoundly felt. When left alone, there is no need to hide, to cut off corners of oneself to fit into another man’s mold, another man’s expectations. It’s comforting being self-reliant, not needing anyone but himself.

It absolutely haunts him some nights, though; every creature can and will be overcome be a fervent loneliness if truly alone. It takes a while, but some nights where he’s certain someone’s hands won’t burn and their words won’t be scathing, he yearns for contact if just pressed back to back in silence.

In a rudimentary way, Arthur provides that. He has remained the only one at the table, finishing his food and polishing off the rest of his coffee in companionable silence besides John. There is no impression that words are necessary, nor even wanted. And when he’s finished with his breakfast and taken the last drink from his mug, he tugs a cigarette out of its pack. His lips form around the butt of the cigarette like his cooing reassurances, and in time with each drag, John’s shoulders droop and he mimics him as a young child does.

Matches are passed between hands, and John watches as the smoke of the two cigarettes fold into each other and dissipate. It’s a romantic dance toeing the edge of fighting, an aerial battle just as much as it is a waltz. The air from their lungs, visible to the naked eye, intricately wrapped around each other the way they have been their whole lives; playing and fighting, a back and forth with no clear winner and no clear purpose.

From the side, Arthur watches John and how his eyes track the wisps of ember into the atmosphere, as if he were young and curious again. A scowl pulls at the corners of his mouth at the thought, gazing at the ruin that lay before him, the once lively and wonderful child he never got to meet. It can be said about every member of the gang, so in truth, John truly was no different. On the other side, there were differences in abundance: no other gang member had blown into camp at such a young and tender age, and none had stuck stubbornly to Arthur’s side, forced him to witness the evolution, the loss of innocence- yet, he had never truly seen the innocence. 

The moment he laid eyes on the raggedy twelve year old with rope burn around his neck, Arthur knew that whatever youth the child has clung to was meant to be utilized, not as a trait of time but as a tool of deception, and Dutch saw it just the same. Whatever prospect of a childhood this boy had endured had not smiled upon him kindly. What would normally be constructed with fragility was warped into shards of broken glass and anger.

Now, peering at John, smoking his cigarette with little attention to it, there is an exhaustive pang of something old behind his ribs. The emotion presses against them and tries to reach through the intercostal space for John, to comfort and to pity and to console.

The effect is unpalatable, and Arthur at first shrinks back with apprehension. Once bitten, twice shy, he hesitates before a hand loosely settles on John’s shoulder, caught between clapping and stroking. “You doin’ alright?” he asks smoothly, removing the cigarette from his mouth to speak clearly, gently. 

There is a hitch between John’s shoulders, and the muscles throughout his body momentarily jolt with the sudden contact. Unlike the last time he had touched John, the passing of his knuckles across his cheek, feverish even for summer, John doesn’t shuffle away. It’s as though he had expected himself to, as well, as he blinks a few times and eases the tension from his worn muscles.

Straightening, John wrestles internally on whether or not to lean into the noncommittal contact. Previously, the mere ghost of someone’s fingers across his skin set his nerves on fire, and he’d respond in kind with fervid retraction. Now, he doesn’t feel as though he is being branded with hot metal, but there is an offbeat warmth resonating from his palm, outwards. 

Swallowing a mouthful of smoke in his own astonishment, stifling a heavy cough, he tries a nonchalant shrug amidst the tremors wracking his body. He finally clears the itching and burning from his throat and sucks in a harsh breath.

“Been better,” he gets out the best he can, and Arthur breathes out a chuckle. Not _ at _John, but because of John’s neverending antics. There has always been an air of mischief around him, be it at his own expense or premeditated against someone else. It never fails to get a rise out of Morgan on both sides of the coin.

Now, the hand beats lightly against the back of his ribcage, coaxing the smoke out. John expels the rest of it, takes in a great lungful of fresh air, and puts the cigarette to his lips again.

“I can tell,” Arthur cracks with a smirk, only removing his warm palm from John’s back when he’s certain no cough will come. 

“Shut it, Morgan.”

“A’right,” Arthur relents easy. He offers a palm in a sign of peace, and after a moment of silence longer, he offers another cigarette. John eyes the offering like a weary animal, eyes squinted and lips drawn in just so before a hungry hand grasps the end of it and takes it into his possession.

It’s like bribing a stray into accepting his affections with dried jerky and calculated movements.

This time, Marston keeps the cigarette in his fingers and takes his leave. He carries it to the treeline, slinking into the thickening shadows like he belonged on the outskirts of the camp. Arthur watches him, content in the silent exit if just to watch and observe.

It’s been a shift of seasons already, and John is in relatively good health again. His gait isn’t strained from internal bruising, and the stitches on his face are no longer pulling his skin like poor leather. He’s certainly more active, and pushing against the leash Ms. Grimshaw and Dutch have got him on with ardour. They have to cut him loose sometime, or the man’s is going to do something stupid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from holy war by rainbow kitten surprise.  
next chapter may be a little further out since i'm starting work and the next one needs some work done for me to be happy with it. kudos and comments greatly appreciated!


	3. the blood on my hands scares me to death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a hive of emotions welling up inside of John, swarming his senses and blotting out his sun when they wash over him, and by God does it sting. Every glint of fear in his family’s faces, every promise of armed security, every frightened whimper from Jack stings like nothing else.
> 
> On top of it, Charles has been watching him intently from the opposite side of the crowd, standing beside Sadie’s flank. His face is inscrutable but calculating, and it deeply unsettles him. Smith can’t possibly know, but he did mention how it is in his blood to hunt. 
> 
> At any given moment, he feels, they will sleuth out the perpetrator hiding amongst them and cast him out like a sick dog, or worse, put him down like one.

Unsurprisingly, the man most notorious for escaping chores has turned to them as a vice. What one would never expect John Marston to be caught doing he was more and more often found doing at his own volition.

It is the augury the Dutch was looking for, and everyone can see the way he watches John from his tent, evaluating and scrutinizing.

The seal of approval comes as a shoulder clap in the middle of one of the hottest afternoons felt in a while. John had felt an unjust burning in his joints, and the restlessness could not be dispelled with any amount of stretching. Exhausting all options that followed in his loosening restrictions of light exercise, he had cast a look around for watching eyes before he moved for the axe.

Charles is generally the one expected to chop firewood, not per anybody’s orders but his own autonomy. As of today, he was out in town with Sadie and Abigail in a valiant attempt to get Mrs. Adler’s spirits up. He knows firsthand that keeping cooped up in the open camp is detrimental despite the open view of the sprawling river and the blanket of forest to survey as their kingdom. It grows stifling and stale fast, and when everybody is busier than a full hive there is no one to help distract.

The axe is a welcoming weight to his hands. He fears that at this rate, his palms will grow soft as a woman’s and he will wither away if he is prescribed anymore rest. Each log splinters satisfyingly, even if imperfectly. Sweat pools in his clavicle, opened as much as modestly possible in the middle of camp, and down his temples.

In the past month, the sky has heated up more and more, scorching the Earth and punishing her inhabitants. How he wished he could at least shed his shirt without Grimshaw breathing down his neck.

Without warning, too caught up in pulling another log onto the chopping block, a hand claps John on the shoulder. It felt like a searing brand, even through his shirt under the midday sun. It thoroughly derails any focus he had with the pain. It elicits a harsh flinch, and he shies away from it without a thought.

Turning to face the person who intruded on his reprieve, he is greeted by Dutch, simply beaming at him. To the recoil wrought by his own hand, he makes no visible reaction, but rather rubs his hands together instead.

“Well, well, John. Few short weeks of bed rest, and you’re good as new!” he gleams, cheeks dimpling with his satisfaction. Mindlessly, John wipes his forehead of sweat and nods as trained, disoriented by the way the grace of his cool-ringed fingers had seared him so and the dizzying power of the burning sun over his head.

“In good time, as well! We’re short on money,” he says, and John’s lips pull tight as his nod becomes curt. Dutch thinly veiled order sticks with him even as his leader walks away:  _ “Get out there and make some money.” _

As one of the well-trained sons of Dutch, he is quick to follow his commands. The axe cleanly splits the last log with determination. He relinquishes the axe, handle up and against the stump, and dusts himself free of bark dust.

He’s quick to his tent, quick to adorn his gun belts and bandoliers, quick to stride through camp and reach his horse, but not quick enough to miss the arrival of supplies. There’s the rattle of the wagon clambering up the trail and a few shouts as they enter camp, orders of aid. Abigail had scanned the camp as they pushed through the treeline, finally finding John where she didn’t expect him. She was fast to dismount from the wagon before it was even fully stopped, a hardened look in her eyes. With one boot in the stirrup, he’s half tempted to shoot off down the path before she can reach him, the steeled look in her eyes warning of a storm of troubles.

“John!” she hollers, hitching her skirt up to hustle towards him, crinkling the newspaper in her hand in the process. He falters, and steps down before she reaches him. Abigail is out of breath and rests a hand on her chest to calm her furiously beating heart.

“Abigail?” he says, cocking his head to the side just so as a hand hovers over one of her shoulders; prepared to comfort if necessary, but not pushing for it.

“Where'd you think y’er going?” she demands, straightening herself once she had regained her breath. John blinks at her, and straightens himself as well, although not in a defensive manner. He first peered over her shoulder, looking for Dutch in the throng of people milling about the cart, before he turned and answered her question. 

“Dutch said to get out and find somethin’ t’do,” he said wearily, eyeballing her reaction. Without Dutch immediately around to back his word, he grows tentative when Abigail’s eyebrows cinch in the middle like a seam tightening.

“I-” she blusters, the air leaving her, “well, if Dutch said so, I guess I can’t stop ya.” It was clearly disturbing her that John was finally allowed out of camp, being rushed into a new job, and the anxiety is manifesting in creases and crinkles in the newspaper she has got wadded in her fists, close to her heart. While normal for her to busy her hands when she’s upset, generally her skirt is the one that takes the brunt of the punishment. Using a newspaper as an anxious coping device is particularly odd, as Abigail can scarcely read a word.

“Whatcha got there?” he asks, going to extend a hand towards it when Abigail bundles it closer to her chest like she’s being mugged. Then, easing the paper into her hands, unfurling the crumpled corners and smoothing it out, her eyes softened with worry. 

“It’s jus’ the paper, Sadie got it while we was loading the wagon,” she says, fingers brushing over an image on the front page, “She read it to me and Charles while we was riding back, and it’s bad business, John.” There is a queer moroseness in her voice, and John cocks his head as she squints at some of the words.

“What happened?” he said, voice also dropping as he stepped a little closer, trying to peak over the top. Finally, after a sigh, she relinquishes it and brandishes the newspaper to him in resigned defeat. She knows she can hardly read a lick of what’s on it, as hard as she tries to learn from Hosea.

First thing that his eyes cling to is the artist rendition of a monstrous wolf. It’s all he sees for a moment as his vision narrows to pinpoints and a cold weight drops in his stomach. With large, gaping maws lined with deadly teeth, the wolf-beast snarls in the reprinted lines. 

Above the image reads an alarming headline,  _ “Wolf Beast Slaughters Man’s Brother” _ . 

Abigail frowns as John’s face slackens in shock and his face blanches. She moves to take the paper back, “Y’shouldn’t be lookin’ at this,” she says softly, sympathetically, knowing the lasting imprints of the winter months. When her fingers curl over the top of the newspaper, gingerly trying to remove it, John stubbornly jerks it away from her.

“I’m  _ fine, _ ” he states plainly, spitting more that what was necessary. It makes her back off, scowl deepening, but she doesn’t try again.

As fast as his brain can comprehend, he reads through the whole article in a matter of a minute, then again, and then for a third time, trying to wrap his head around it. Hosea would be proud of his reading comprehension at that moment. 

Supposedly, while he was unconscious in the ghastly form he took, he had attacked someone. Originally, he figured that it had been some large prey animal that had fallen victim to him, not an innocent man with his own flesh and blood as witness. 

The discussion at the table eased his mind somewhat, with reasons of large predators or exuberance. It placated the fears that it was him that committed such an atrocity, fueling the fire to create probably excuses for the man and what his eyes perceived for him.

It weighed across his shoulders and pressed down upon his heart like the weight of thunderstorms, and anxiety crackled in his bones like lightning. No water spills from the clouds and no tears from his eyes, even if they grow dark and heavy with the pressure. 

He sees the source of the sanguinary stain clearly, now, if just for a brief moment before it’s repressed. Memories, triggered by the news article, come to him in flashbacks. 

The moon, seated high in the sky, bearing down upon his acts of atrocity. There’s a man laying on the road- two men, but one is still alive. Scared, shaking, cowering, but alive. The other is on his back, head lolled to the side, and he is quiet and still. The companion, seemingly infinitely smaller than what he should be, valiantly shields the remnants of his brother.

Unarmed and staring down a beast with only the moonlight as his witness, even the horses they rode in on had abandoned them.

The memory is corporeal, with the wind blowing from off the river and the blood- fresh, dripping from his muzzle. It took place on the very road behind him, a half-mile from where he lay in memory. The river had smelled like nostalgia for a reason.

Even now, without the blood coating his hands, they shake like the crime was just committed. And it perturbed him as to why- committing heinous acts against his fellow man was as familiar as breathing and drinking. The nature of it: violent, unprovoked, in cold-blood, and forgettable,  _ that _ is what sank low in his stomach.

A deep, bellowing laughter snaps him from the visions of massacre. A small huddle has formed around those recently returned. Sadie carried a large sack of flour over her shoulder, standing in reiteration to a captivated audience, presumably detailing the article as Charles stood close by and nodded along. 

“Ain’t nothin’ we can’t handle,” Bill boasts, waving the rifle in his hands around with his point. Flashing his feathers like a cock to the hens, it’s clear he’s desperately trying to impress them. Not a single one acknowledge it, but stand in their nerves as they listen to Sadie as she waits for him to quiet with an air of irritation before continuing. 

Everything he can catch, between muted mutters of worry and vain declarations of power, fits with what he had read in the article. Not quite as dramatic as the prints suggest, but truer, more realistic and therefore more terrifying. There are, of course, skeptics, quick to voice their criticisms, not at Sadie but the story as a whole, many points John has already heard from the conversation at the lunch table. 

Arthur is in the crowd, listening intently with his hands settled soothingly on little Jack’s shoulders. John figures that Arthur had escorted Jack to the wagon when it had first arrived, having been taking care of him in both of his parents’ absence, to reunite him with Abigail. When she had taken off in search of John, that left Arthur with Jack stranded in the crowd, trying to comfort the increasingly disquieted kid. 

Watching the paternal actions come so naturally to Arthur sparks an odd, indescribable feeling in John. Even moreso, witnessing Jack’s young features reflect the fear of what he’s hearing does nothing more than drive a stake of guilt straight through his heart.

Inherently,  _ he  _ is the reason for his fear, but it can also be argued that he wasn’t as it was an unconscious act he committed. Holding onto that meager lie helps to hold himself together as Abigail gingerly takes him by the wrist and leads him towards the crowd.

The uncertain murmuring grows louder the closer he draws and just as Abigail had done, his fist clenches around the newspaper with a vengeance. A few people part to allow them to get closer to their son, and Arthur respectfully dips his head and backs off as they approach although his eyes linger on John. From his peripherals, it looks like pity that saturates his eyes.

Between the energy of fear and grandiosity, he’s silent and near-unmoving. Even with Jack relocated to stand between his two parents and Abigail successfully keeping him entertained whilst still hanging off every word from Sadie’s mouth, he stares vacantly at Mrs. Adler. There is a hive of emotions welling up inside of him, swarming his senses and blotting out his sun when they wash over him, and by God does it sting. Every glint of fear in his family’s faces, every promise of armed security, every frightened whimper from Jack stings like nothing else.

On top of it, Charles has been watching him intently from the opposite side of the crowd, standing beside Sadie’s flank. His face is inscrutable but calculating, and it deeply unsettles him. Smith can’t possibly know, but he did mention how it is in his blood to hunt. 

At any given moment, he feels, they will sleuth out the perpetrator hiding amongst them and cast him out like a sick dog, or worse, put him down like one.

“Alright,” John abruptly blurts out, suddenly nauseous. He squeezes his eyes shut for a fast moment before he is ripping himself from the security of his family. “I’ve heard this, don’t need’t hear it again,” he lamely excuses himself, pushing past people without consolation and setting himself on course for his stead with intention. He had neglected to give her any details about where he was going, and she desperately wanted to call out for an answer, but silenced and stifled herself as there were other’s intently listening.

Even if he did stop, even if he did say what was really upsetting him (because she knows it’s not hearing the same thing yet again, considering it takes ten of anything for it to stick in his dense skull), there would be little chance of changing his mind.

John hears her start and stop several times before devolving into a frustrated sigh before he reaches the stallion who simply huffed at him, having been expecting him anxiously since the tack had been thrown on him haphazardly. John hardly waits a moment before or after tugging on the straps of the saddle to ensure the soundness of the belts before he mounts Old Boy and like a bullet through the branches and leaves takes off.

Diverting his horse and pulling his reins to the left of the trail, he makes haste for open country. What is desperately needed is space and isolation, if just for a little while. To be surrounded by nothing and no one but nature.

It has been well over a month, possibly even two, since he has been allowed to ride and just as long since he has been able to catch a decent breeze across his skin and through his hair that wasn’t sharp and biting with frost.

The sun bears down on him gently, and it eases some tension from his shoulders. When the wind blows through the long strands of his hair, it startles him that he had forgotten his hat somewhere in camp. It doesn’t irk him as much as it would normally.

Dutch had originally wanted for him to find something to pull in money, but the last thing that John wants is to go anywhere near Valentine lest he get recognized. That, and his mind felt like a web of cotton, mussied with overflowing thoughts, so any sort of sleuthing would fall short of the standard they have been raised with.

Rather, he finds something of more use than just riding around aimlessly, stretching the kinks from his horse’s joints and expelling some anxious energy from himself. For awhile, after easing into a steady trot and riding for the better part of an hour, he deems that he’s created enough distance between him and the camp before he starts to scan the trees for decent game spots. The air is rich with the smell of open country; the leaves smell vaguely of old winter frost and the earth beneath Old Boy’s hooves is rife with wildflowers that tickle his nose as he leads off the beaten path into a dense thicket. 

Everything comes to him sharper, as if his body is rearing for a good hunt. Perhaps the stint of time spent laying around, only seeing fresh meat be brought in over saddle and not being able to revel in the pride of providing, has cleared his senses from the smell of gunpowder that haunts them. 

Halting off the path, John takes stock of his surroundings. Long past the train tracks that looms near the camp, he’s unconsciously followed the river, the Dakota River, he recalls Arthur telling him. Standing side by side and peering out over the cliff to the world below like kings surveying their domain, Arthur had shared his cigarettes and educated him on all that he has learned of the region. Bountiful with waterfowl, herbs, herds of deer, and jack rabbits that seem to take joy in darting beneath the horses’ hooves. Briefly, he spoke of a stretch of river, nearing a beautiful waterfall, as he put it, that he kept seeing deer drink from and ducks of all sorts wade in.

He wasn’t kidding- even from a distance, the waterfall is larger than he had expected from the casual reverence of Arthur’s voice. Cascading down in thick ropes of seemingly infinite water, it crashes into the jutting rocks at the bottom with aweing power. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a religious thought wanders it’s way into his mind before it is shunned yet again.

A twinge of fear captures him, and he watches the waterfall over his shoulder as if it is out to get him as he delves into the forest surrounding the river. Irrationally, he pledges to never go across, under, or around such a raw force of nature, or else he imagines some freak act of karma will strike him down into the watery depths beneath the cliff.

Taking a moment to apologize under his breath before he urges his horse through the heavy barricade of bushes and bramble, he has to squint through the abrupt shift in light. Absently petting Old Boy’s neck, he finds a decently hidden crop of maple to tether him to while he’s hunting and whispers a few parting words to the animal as he recedes into the forest. The tree’s canopies are thick with new leaf, and for awhile it works in hiding all the game from him until he hears the trample of leaves underfoot in a soft parade.

At first, he doesn’t readily see the herd in question in his immediate area. It takes a few minutes of pushing and fighting the vegetation for silence to get a quick peek of antlers and soft ears downwind from him. They don’t notice his presence despite the few stumbles and the result being a few labored breaths from being out of shape, and he uses it to his advantage.

He had been smart enough to nab a rifle from the guard’s supply before leaving (or trying to, the first time around) and stock up on ammunition in case the bed rest has done more to mess with his head than he anticipated. Waiting, he watches several more sets of weary ears poke through the foliage, counting upwards of five deer in the herd with more likely lagging behind as they enjoyed the new growth of the earth.

One in particular had caught his attention, a specifically lavish buck with years on him. Fat in the middle with good eating and an impressive rack from years of victories hard won, he sticks out to John like a sore thumb now that he’s noticed him, so much so that he cannot drag his eyes away from the creature.

There are no qualms about it as he raises his gun like it were a part of him since birth, no internal issues about ending a life to continue another, no problem with the sound logic behind it.

As he squeezes the trigger, flashbacks of that night come to him in overlays over his vision. This kill will be different than that,  _ this  _ is necessary,  _ that  _ wasn’t him, he continues to deny.

The bullet flies out of the barrel and pieces through the eye of the buck, and the thundering of his family’s collective hoofbeat as they scattered serenade him off into another plane. 

When Old Boy shows his face back in camp, the sun had peaked in the sky and has started to lower itself gradually into the horizon. Pleasantly so, his horse is panting with the exercise he so desperately longed for in the period that John wasn’t allowed to ride. Now, John has made up for the disuse and the uselessness with saddle laden with game at all sides. Several ducks and hares hang besides his stirrups, and he managed to carry back with him not one, but two deer. Somehow he had managed to drag the carcass of the second over his lap as a means of storage as the typical spot behind him was already reserved with his impressive buck, and he comes to accept the ruined pair of pants stained with animal blood as Ms. Grimshaw’s eyes light up upon seeing him.

In her usual squawk, she calls Mr. Pearson over to help unpack the game from John’s saddle and handles the bodies of the hares by herself. Before she starts for the cooking station, she flashes him a genuine and wide grin; “Couple more days like this, Mr. Marston, and you might just redeem y’erself,” she teases, her normally tense face soft with a certain happiness that comes with knowing that her family will eat well for a while.

Sheepishly, John ducks his head. “We’ll see,” is all he says as he dismounts now that he is free from his personal baggage. Now that part of the camp has sprung into activity, it draws some other gang members from their hiding spots. There are words of praise thrown around, and comments about the buck he had found, and the attention makes him uneasy yet again. 

The point of the hunting trip was to be out of the scrutinizing eye of the gang, and now it’s a moot point. As soon as the wave of anxiety hits him, John is making excuses to escape the situation. The moment his horse is free from the hunts rewards, he’s leading him over and basically throwing the reins at the O’Driscoll kid to take care of. 

He has provided enough, and he wants to enjoy the warmth of doing so in the comfort of his tent. Fortunately, tonight Abigail has retired early thanks to a fussy Jack, and only calls a pleased greeting from across camp as she watches him hardly acknowledge her existence and retreat into his tent, closing the flaps behind him with finality in the air.

Close to her, obscured partly by Dutch’s tent between the two, Arthur stands and smokes a cigarette. His brows pinch at the curtness of John’s reply, and he taps his ash before he turns to evaluate Abigail’s face, searching for microexpressions to clue him into her thoughts.

He has gotten pretty good at picking apart her features, as she is genuinely picky about what she shows to the world. Since dragging his eyes away from John’s fortress of solitude, her eyes have softened in resignation, and the small smile that had quirked the corners of her lips had dropped drastically. 

“Don’t mind him,” he says gruffly, deciding to flick the rest of the cigarette under his boot to crush, “the boy has all sorts of thoughts in his head right now. He’ll get over’m.” His words are meant as reassurance, but it only strains Abigail heart. She waits for him to settle beside her on the bedrolls before she opens her mouth and vents her frustrations.

“I know, he never likes bein’ cooped up, even for his own good,” she mutters, throwing up her hands in exasperation. “It’s just- he ain’t never been all too good with tellin’ me what’s going on in his head.”

“Well, considering all he’s got in there are a couple of coins rattlin’ around,” he says and shrugs, “dunno what all you can expect from ‘im. He’s emotionally constipated.” That earns him a soft chuckle from Abigail before she sighs, turning her gaze to her lap and fidgeting with the children’s dime novel Jack had wanted her to read.

“I know,” she says, trying to find the words to articulate her flustered thoughts, “Sometimes he tells me things, jus’ bits ‘n pieces here and there, but it’s better than nothin’.” Her nose scrunches up and her voice fills with irritation, “or a whole bunch’a ‘I don’t know’s.”

Arthur’s eyes drift over to where Hosea was, just a few lengths across camp. Jack had run to him with a specific word in mind that the trio didn’t know, and was now trapped in conversation with the older gentleman. Hosea’s face, generally wrinkled with concern and a certain kind of sadness only he can wear, is now softened as the young child listens and nods along intently to his words.

“Never was much of a talker when feelings got brought up,” Arthur said, swinging his gaze back to Abigail, “but he is a prime specimen of the male species.” 

“Yeah, none of you men can ever just… talk. Always got t’make it a big deal, like someone’s robbin’ ya,” she says with a simper. 

“In a way, y’are.”

Abigail turns and blinks owlishly at him as if he’s went and grown a third head.

“Y’er taking away the comfort and privacy of…” he trails off as he tries to think of the right words to articulate it, “of not being known. Lot of bad people in this world, it’s easy to let the wrong person in, so sometimes it’s just easier to keep ‘em all out.”

“That, I understand,” she says, “but I’m his wife. I don’t understand why he can’t talk to  _ me _ \- I ain’t done nothin’ wrong to break his trust, have I?” 

Meeting her eyes tugs Arthur’s heart, as she allows herself some vulnerability in his presence. Abigail’s generally stern eyes of sky and light where wide and dejected with her eyebrows pinch high and tight like her lips. His breath gets trapped in his chest.

“No, sweetheart, you didn’t do anything,” he says in a long sigh, “John’s just a real piece of work, somehow even more than usual.” Tentatively, he rests his hand on her knee and pats it a few times in solace, “As much as he’s hurtin’ you keeping everything inside, he’s hurting himself.”

Abigail nods slowly and the corners of her mouth quirk up in a sad smile. She overlays her hand over Arthur’s and squeezes it softly.

“Jus’ because it’s easier not letting anyone in because you’re scared of them using your pain, doesn’t get the pain goes away.”

“Yeah, he didn’t much like being stuck in camp all the time, but that’s what he’s makin’ of his own head,” she says and looks to Arthur for validation, that the concept is firmly grasped and the guilt is right to wash off.

“Exactly,” he says with a grin as Jack came bounding back to them. With the youngster approaching, he gingerly slides his hand out from under hers, and she lets him go in favor of turning towards her son. The sadness and heartache is zipped up and packed away from moment Jack’s eyes focus on her face, and her smile is wide and ingenuine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from 'i'll be good' by jaymes young
> 
> updates may slow down a bit between work and school, but i have the roughest idea of the next couple of chapters!


	4. you sleep with the bones of the rabbit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That is one of the many quirks many laymen wouldn’t attribute to a famous outlaw- Arthur's gentleness. Rarely does it come out in his interactions with other people, though, and while he cannot channel the same soft heart Arthur seems to hide, John can understand just as well.
> 
> It’s the same tenderness that he expressed to John when he lay feverish and dying, as everyone thought. The same notes reverberated deep in his chest as he struggled through what would be a farewell to his brother, the timbre vibrating beneath the hand that rested on his burning hands. The specific calm that voice conjures works on the beholder just the same, as it held tears at bay just barely and worked to keep his sorrow silent.
> 
> The note of loss that echoes for wilted gardens and sickly livestock, for younger siblings, departing family, and lovers, for the injured, the diseased, and the fallen.
> 
> John aches in so many ways, anticipating the day he hears that voice in his ears, meant for him again.

Since Abigail had last confided in him, Arthur has begun to watch John just a little bit closer. Not enough to warrant suspicion, but enough to know that he isn’t doing anything stupid. Making sure he isn’t running off to some mistress in town, that he isn’t getting sick and hiding it from folks, that he isn’t in some way, shape, or form jeopardizing his relationship with his wife and family.

The reclusion is stifling, Arthur sees that. It’s in the way John’s eyes follow the movements of others and the way he almost begrudgingly forces himself into the woods on horseback-- it’s not voluntary, like a vestigial reflex, kicking out beneath the table. 

The more Arthur watches his evasion towards anyone’s attempts at getting close, the angrier he gets. In his eyes, there is no apparent reason for John to be behaving the way that he is, like the feral child he once was. He has long since been tamed and domesticated to a communal life, and there is no discernible reason to suddenly, after fourteen or so years, to be reverting this aggressively. 

It’s like watching a coyote caught in a fox trap, twisting and ripping at its own tendons with blind teeth in desperation to escape.

Not only is he hurting himself, but he’s hurting Abigail. In Arthur’s mind, he pins that as the cause for most of his frustration towards the other man whether it’s the root or not.

She’s tired of the antics, as if she has a second child to take care of now, the second one more stubborn and petulant than the first. When is first started and Abigail first reached out for comfort and guidance, he didn’t rightly know what to tell her.

Truth is, in the back of his mind, and he’s sure hers too, he was scared of John bolting again. This time, though, having learned from the last experience, he’ll get gone while the gettin's good.

When Jack had finally tired himself out and gone to bed, Arthur and Abigail shared quiet words beside his sleeping body. The only conclusion they came to was inconclusive, and Arthur suggested that her best bet would be to keep pushing and pulling for his attention, to try and get a single foot through the doorway of John’s scattered brain.

Easier said than done, as the man is jumpier than a hare in hunting season every time someone looks his way- but she manages.

It took a week and some change to be able to even get into the same tent with him without much fuss. John had taken off the night before in a hurriedly announced rush and didn’t return well into the afternoon, seemingly more disorientated than usual, and Abigail took the opportunity for Jack to learn some new words with his Uncle Hosea and for her to get close.

Arthur was settled by the fire, letting the glow of the flames bleed in with the late evening sun and paint his pages, when Abigail emerged from John’s tent. He noticed her exit even though it was soft, and he took stock of her put together appearance. Her face was calm with a hint of satisfaction, and he claps shut his journal and unfolds his legs in anticipation for the report.

“Well,” she starts before she has even reached the fire, “he let me touch’em.”

Arthur blinks in surprise, not sure which manner of ways he should take those words. Abigail rolls her eyes with a small smirk, “get y’er head outta the gutter. John didn’t freak out when I massaged his neck.” Collecting her hands in her lap, palms out to the fire’s warmth, she sighs contentedly, “hasn’t let me since he’s been injured.”

A breath leaves his chest and he laughs from his throat. “Apologies-- he didn’t get all skittish this time?”

“Skittish?” Abigail’s face draws up in confusion, “he’d normally just get a temper with me, but… he wouldn’t act scared of it.”

“Interesting.”

“Why, is he scared of something?”

“Dunno, but that’s how he was actin’,” Arthur hums, and he settles his pen and journal into one hand to grab his pack with the other, “would jump like a beat dog.”

Abigail watches him place the cigarette between his lips and worries her own between her teeth, not sure how to take the new information. “I- I dunno why, I tried to get somethin’ out of him but he just flat out refused to tell me much.”

“Sounds like him, always deflectin’,” he says in the pause of lighting his cigarette, holding the match close to his face. Her head cocks downward to watch the edge of the fire licking the grass to nothing. In turn, Arthur watches her through the screen of his cigarette’s smoke, frown tugging his lips. “Jus’ give him time,” he says simply, stealing the cigarette away from his mouth to speak clearly and making sure he has her eyes on him before he continues, “the boy is many things, but patient isn’t one of them. He’ll tire himself out eventually.”

In the space of her absence, where she had withdrawn from him and resolved herself to her own life separate from him, and his own isolation creating an impenetrable barrier between him and anyone else in the camp, she had not noticed the severity of his reactions to things such a gracing contact or prolonged attention. It’s all news to her, and her chest aches sorely with sympathy. There were times in her life where she couldn’t stand the touch of anyone, nor the attention of even existing in a society, but the circumstances are vastly different-- all she can hope to do is pray that John will tell her what is wrong with him at some point, and pray that whatever it is isn’t as bad as what she has had to endure to get to such points.

“God.”

Abigail’s head jerks up at the abrupt break in silence between the two. Arthur is grinning loosely, eyes shut as he shakes his head.

“How in the world did you fall for such a fool.”

His words are more statement than question, and Abigail blinks with uncertainty. His tone told her that she wasn’t the target of those words, but there is no one else there except for them.

* * *

It’s as though John knows of Arthur’s and Abigail’s attempts to pin him in a moment of vulnerability, to pry his secrets out of his mouth like teeth. Whenever one or the other approaches him, he finds an excuse to scurry off. Together, forming a wall against him, he stands his ground and gets nasty.

It’s not pleasant, and there is no ounce of pride collected from the blood, sweat, and tears it has taken to obscure himself from view, but he has managed it thus far. The illusion of him is relatively stable, with the misconception of him being as moody as a lady nearing the month’s moon, and for apparently no reason whatsoever.

He’s insistent on not answering any self-incriminating questions, determined to dance around anything that he’s uncertain about with his ‘condition’-- still hasn’t touched water, that hasn’t changed, but now he is less apt to go into town near the animal stalls and general population for his primal instincts, not as eager to go into the bar in case alcohol inhibits any control over himself or he gets recognized by that man’s brother should he still linger in the saloon.

That alone puts a solid ring around him, deterring many of the men from indulging him with their usually inebriated (or waiting to be) presence and the women can only take so much awkward small talk before it gets old.

So Abigail and Arthur, with the occasional rarity of someone else needing him to do something, have been the only steady source of communication and contact even though he lives surrounded by people. Their interactions may not be the nicest in the world, with the tendency for Arthur to go for the kill and directly rile him up with questions, or the internal anguish of hurting Abigail so much with his separation rising into his throat and choking his words, but it is better than nothing. He is man enough to admit that wholly.

Abigail and her soft attempts at getting him to come clean of the unspeakable hurts, but not quite as much as the internalized guilt of not wanting her. It had occurred to him as gently as a landslide into a still pond that he was not interested in her anymore while they were sitting side by side by the campfire late one night. She was talking to him, and he was listening, appreciating the steadiness of her voice in his ears even when she was talking about such mundane things like her daily chores or Jack’s learning.

When she had first entered camp years ago, her voice was a point of fixation for him. It was naturally coquettish in tone and it translated well in bed. But now, the boyish infatuation that had clouded his senses years ago was all but depleted; her voice was soothing like that of a mother, but not as a lover.

The revelation was soul-crushing, but only because she didn’t know. Everyone expected him to be head over heels in love with her- they have a  _ child-- _ but his heart cannot conjure any artificial emotions. John was stuck staring at her as her eyes turned to meet his with unending adoration.

Somehow, he could live if he were outed as the beast he is and be content to be put down like one, but hurting someone as devoted and sweet as Abigail will never let him rest, even if he were sleeping six feet under.

John had sat there and listened to her tell the story of her ordinary day, her voice growing to be painful as his heart welled up with unspoken grief until he couldn’t take it anymore and he disappeared into his tent with a half-hearted goodnight.

* * *

Time had passed before something else interrupted the clean flow of his life. It wasn’t transferring camps after nearly losing several lives, including his own, to a Pinkerton ambush, because that was expected and easily dealt with. For a couple weeks, nothing drastic happens with the gang as a whole, let alone with John. His peculiarities have faded into background noise, and he was falling back into the pattern of robbing and killing folks and running from the law per usual, as if he were as normal as he was almost feeling.

While it was upsetting to be forced away from the camp they were at in Horseshoe Overlook with the beautiful view and variety of game, the earth where they are now is red with iron and mineral deposits, and the trees stand a little taller and a little straighter than those back West who twisted upon themselves grotesquely. The new camp is deeper in the East, further South than where many of the gang would like to be, but it brought a welcome reprieve from the Pinkerton Agency as they weren’t too keen on getting in the middle of a ceaseless civil war, and each and everyone of them had each other’s backs no matter.

To no one’s surprise, the moment they had settled in, Dutch was standing on his soap box in the middle of camp and rallying for energy and new opportunities. It was stronger than the one they had received in the middle of Colter to stay strong and stay together, and inspired many of the gang members with a sense of vigor and pride.

New opportunities were everywhere. That generally goes hand in hand with the unsurprising amount of hick filth that populated the local area and ran the economy of these parts. Collectively, their IQ scored lower than how many folk existed in a twenty mile radius, so scams and schemes worked easily- so much so, that Arthur got annointed to deputy within the day in town.

The most interesting thing aside from escaped prisoners to doctors in need was the ongoing family feud that burned low like embers in the center of the tiny town of Rhodes. The gang took favors for both families, as they were full of riches beside their bigotry. Their services were requested by the most noble of the families with smiles on their faces, and were often met with equal enthusiasm. Between the two, there was more inclination to aid the Gray’s due to their pleasantness towards the unruly bunch of workers that cropped up out of nowhere as well as their affinity to be particularly nasty in their battles- burn their fields, steal their moonshine, and today, steal their prized Arabians. 

John found himself smiling beside Javier and Arthur as the older gentleman before them put them to the task. His hatred runs deep, and his morals are no help at inhibiting the request. The money to be earned from the horses they were going to steal doesn’t even affect him, and the three guns-for-hire are elated to know they’ll soon be in the possession of a solid stack of money just for  _ horses. _

In hindsight, all three of them should have smelt the horseshit. It was too good to be true and nearly got them all killed on the fool’s errand.

Drawing their horses near the border of the impressive Braithwaite property, Arthur took charge with a practiced smile and slick charm used to butter up the most averse targets. It almost never fails, and it gets the three outlaws through the gates and into the stables without a single hitch.

A quip about how easy it was dies on John’s tongue as he gets to properly appreciate the horses they sought after. John was by no means a horse fanatic; if the horse didn’t throw him under gunfire and was willing to ride along trains, then it’s good enough for him. 

The Gray gentleman wasn’t kidding- the stallions before him were awe-inspiring. Every ounce of them was purebred muscle with impressive stature and fiersome tempers that would prove well if they chose to cut their losses and take them for themselves.

It was tempting, but the gang came first and foremost.

He grabs a rein and leads the frustrated and unsettled horse out to where Javier has the first one tethered. Behind him, he hears Arthur taking his time with his, soothing it with a deep voice and patting it’s great neck with a firm hand until it’s hooves quit stamping the stable floor and it’s ears relaxed forward. 

That is one of the many quirks many laymen wouldn’t attribute to a famous outlaw- his gentleness. He’ll spend hours speaking to his horses and soothing them with sugar cubes and an easy hand through their mane if the world stopped long enough to let him. Rarely does it come out in his interactions with other people, though, and while he cannot channel the same soft heart Arthur seems to hide, John can understand just as well.

It’s the same tenderness that he expressed to John when he lay feverish and dying, as everyone thought. The same notes reverberated deep in his chest as he struggled through what would be a farewell to his brother, the timbre vibrating beneath the hand that rested on his burning hands. The specific calm that voice conjures works on the beholder just the same, as it held tears at bay just barely and worked to keep his sorrow silent.

The note of loss that echoes for wilted gardens and sickly livestock, for younger siblings, departing family, and lovers, for the injured, the diseased, and the fallen.

John aches in so many ways, anticipating the day he hears that voice in his ears, meant for him again.

John focuses ahead of him.

Reaching Javier, who nods at him curtly, they swap hands with the reins, and John hastens to get into Old Boy’s saddle as casually as possible in case they were being watched with suspicion. It won’t save them from the rain of bullets, but it’ll buy them time to gain the momentum they need.

Arthur has just started to knot the reins of the final Arabian to Javier’s saddle when there is a bellowing shout over their shoulders. It shoots adrenaline through his veins and all of his hairs stand on end as it rings in his ears prefacing the first shot fired. It didn’t take long- a matter of seconds-- before a bullet lodges into the dirt beside them.

Javier issues a quick demand to hurry out and get the hell out, and Arthur rushes the knot to get back into his saddle. It’s in good time too, as Braithwaites start crawling out of the woodwork- standing from the balconies, rushing from the fields on foot, and charging across the plantation on horseback.

Joining the rising beat of gunfire is the snap of reins as they haul ass, taking off across the open field of dry tobacco towards a broken down fence the horses can all make it over without difficulty.

John’s own ragged breathing is loud in his ears, louder than hoofbeat and louder than revolver shots as he twists in his saddle to shoot down several riders tagging them. From the corner of his eye, he catches Arthur, several yards back and moving slow in stark comparison to him and Javier, and John knows it’s by design. It’s a tactic to draw attention away from the target to ensure a higher rate of success, regardless of the danger it puts him directly in front of.

Normally, his blood would be boiling, irate at Arthur’s hero complex jumping out in the thick of it and jeopardizing his own life for a few horses. Now, however, he watches the other man transfixed like a kid watching someone shoot bottles off a fence post in the distance. Each bottle evaporates and disappears with each shot in succession, never slowing down as his hand slams the lever back between each trigger pull.

Awe pools in his eyes like the reflection of stars across a pond’s still surface, unphased by what would break the surface of water from other bodies. The quaking of the Earth, the falling of the sky, nothing rattles the ponds steady banks.

His body language is rigid, thighs squeezing his mount’s sides as he focus down the sights. He’s following the movements of the horse’s gallop as if they were one; aim steady, as if time were stopped for him and only him. Sweat glistens even from the distance between them, catching in the boiling sunlight and the dappling shade of the woods as the manor disappears behind them. 

Every line in Arthur’s face reads murderous, and it makes the hair all over John’s body bristle. 

John’s stomach curls around itself like a sinuous snake, warming him from the inside out with adrenaline- pooling in his core like lava. The heat of the moment makes his skin break out in goosebumps and makes his whole body thrum with a rare energy.

Not often does Arthur chanel all of his focus into a mission, even if gunfire is being exchanged. The numbers were staggeringly against them, and Javier was unable to help return fire as he was busy wrangling three unruly stallions. That, in turn, pins most of the weight onto him and John, but all he does is stare long enough to be noticed by Arthur, who glowers at him as he closes the gap between them.

“Stare at the fucking road, not me,” he snaps, and John’s gaze hardens into a similar, challenging glare. Instead, he points his gaze forward with a point, almost to a fault. 

It is impossible to discern hoofbeats from the thunder beneath him, and he fails to notice two riders barreling down the trail towards them until a gunshot whizzed past his ear, carding through the air and catching strands of his dark hair. By the time he had turned to process two riders on horseback, it was too late.

Arthur had raised his repeater and dispatched them in no less than two seconds with two neat headshots. Their bodies topple off their mounts like ragdolls down stairs, and the confused creatures stagger to a dazed halt, stressed by the abrupt change atop their backs. It had happened so fast, John almost missed the fatal accuracy of Arthur focused.

A warmth flushes inside his chest flushes and he whips his head forward before Arthur gets another chance to chastise him, bringing his hand up from his reins to check for blood where the bullet zipped by. 

The money they got for the horses was not enough for the near-death experiences and the smoldering anger from Arthur, who avoids him from the second they saddle their horses after selling to the fence and every moment thereafter. John never was a good listener, and he sneaks glances at Arthur’s back with a different emotion in his eyes now. He’s been silently mulling over the other man’s actions, his brash ‘bravery’ some would call it. All it bore was unnecessary stupidity and added risk to make himself seem bigger- maybe to inflate the wounded man inside to make himself feel better.

It boiled his blood rotten, and he stews on the anger of Arthur’s negligence the whole ride to camp, but reaching camp, he doesn’t get a chance to argue with him about his stupidity. In hindsight, it was for his own good, as John’s point would be drowned out by his own negligence- trying to stare at Arthur like a wonderstruck child in the middle of a gunfight. He knows all the points Arthur would bring up, and could practically hear it in the man’s voice inside his head.

Before John gets the chance to test the accuracy of the scene in his head, Arthur’s called away within a minute of his feet hitting the ground by Dutch, who is bordering the line between manically pleased with himself and antsy. It takes a moment battling with his need to punish Arthur with his disinterest and his curiosity of what could have gotten Dutch so wound up. All he can see is Micah residing near his leader’s feet like a gloating cat, the cream staining his face in unruly strands of blonde making him look more pleased than ever. When Dutch and Micah get to talking and another string of vile ideas worms its way into Dutch’s head, it’s impossible to get it out.

Inevitably, his curiosity wins over, and as he’s putting the gang’s share of the score away in the lockbox, he hovers to listen to what was being said on the opposite end of Dutch’s tent. Whatever was in mind was quickly discussed, as Arthur was already arguing the nuances and complications, pushing their leader’s idea to the limit without punishment.

“It’s an opportunity Micah says we should take-”

“And y’er doin’ it just because he said so?”

“No, because this could be a chance at peace, Arthur.” The displeasure in Dutch’s voice is as thick as fat. There is a long stretch of silence nearing uncomfortable before Arthur’s gruff voice cuts through it. Ordinarily, he knows Arthur, and if doesn’t sit well with him it must be  _ bad. _ Rare are the times where Arthur finds a spine against Dutch, and John knows that Micah’s presence is driving the reluctant agreement.

“Alright. We need all the heat we can taken off our backs,” he finally agrees, but John knows every facet of his voice by now, and he is far from convinced in the plan and everyday, further convinced in Dutch’s judgement.

“Great, we’ll ride at noon. Get your rifle and some extra ammunition in case things get hairy. This is Colm O’Driscoll we’re talking about.”

Hearing that name made John almost choke on his own tongue, and for a moment he’s sure he heard it wrong, that his ears are just jumping to fill in the name with something more dangerous to validate his insecurities. 

“ _ How reassuring. _ ” 

Dutch doesn’t humor the dryness in Arthur’s voice with further comment, and the footsteps scatter. All anger pointed at Arthur previous to his eavesdropping falls away to be replaced with a twisting dread in his stomach. As far back as he can remember, Dutch and Colm have butted heads in the uglist of ways; taking turns spilling blood and stealing the most precious items from each other’s possessions- a morbid game of chase.

There isn’t a doubt in his mind that this is anything else, and he firmly considers marching out of his hiding spot to declare his feelings about the whole scenario, but he knows Dutch: the man is as stubborn as a mule and as determined as one to get what he wants, often in the name of doing what’s right by his family. No amount of screaming and shouting will deter or dissuade him once he’s made up his mind, no matter who says what in how many numbers against him.

The only thing he can do is approach Arthur, wanting for him to not be mad at him anymore, and wish him good luck. When they stand before each other, it’s a charged energy, as alive as the silt of riverbeds. It’s a jittery, unsure energy they share as one in the space. Their eyes crawl over each other’s face for a moment uncomfortably long.

Arthur looks tired, suddenly. The anger that stoked the fire in him had burned out with his will and has left him as angry as John. The exhaustion hangs from his eyes like the stars hang from the night sky. There is a marked softness particular to him that feels displaced in his unease, but John doesn’t get to stare as long as he would’ve liked, as Arthur turns before he finds an answer.

“I’ll need it.”

The rifle slides across his back and the leather strap hugs him protectively. It’s only scarcely placating for John’s dread, understanding the gravity of the ‘meeting’ and knowing that he isn’t there to watch Arthur’s back.

Arthur doesn’t try to meet his eyes again, but rather finds his horse across the way with his gaze. It sits poorly with John, all of it does. Watching the three men converge near their mounts opens a new wound in him, easily mended but wholly dependent on chance like a forest of Lodgepole and Banksia. Whether or not it was all a trap was not hard to discern, but the consequences loomed over him like a bridling thunderstorm. 

The fear and the uncertainty made him feel childlike, unsure of what to do with himself and scared of the storm rolling in his mind, standing alone in the gaping mouth of Arthur’s empty tent. Consequently, he does what any frightened boy will do, and runs to his father.

Hosea is seated in his favorite chair with his feet kicked up and his nose deep in a new book. The soft give of grass underfoot leads him to raise his head, finger keeping his word, to meet John’s eyes. The question drops as softly as his feet as he straightens, lips drawing thinner. 

“What’s wrong, John?” he asks. John doesn’t know where to start, so it begins with a shoulder shrug. The eye contact is hard to keep for long, the concern too intense and too direct to maintain.

It is one of the reasons why John’s mind jumped into Hosea’s company for comfort: as easily as he finishes books with his keen eyes and quest for answers, he reads John. There are questions, and there are answers somewhere in John’s many chapters. With his gaze, he flips through the many pages of John’s tells to try and discern what upset is plaguing him; the looseness of his eyes matching the subtle tightness of his brows, the stiffened muscles cradling his jaw shut, and the minute angle that his head tilts towards him. 

He has changed plenty in the years they’ve had his presence among them, but his eyes have never changed once. As easy to see into the same day they picked up the frightened and furious child, Hosea finds himself nostalgic in John’s unease.

“Would you like to sit somewhere?” Hosea speaks gently, speaking to the child before him while respecting the man.

John stiffly nods, and waits for Hosea to rise from his seat. 

They pick their way through the camp, ignoring the nosy gang members searching for their attention with their eyes alone. The pair retreated to the waterfront to join the fallen, moss-covered tree with water-slick bark, turkey tail mushrooms and blue estuary crabs being their audience.

The conversation was short and concise like the waves pulling the earth back in, forever changing the mold of the land. It is a simple comparison to draw a connection between the beach to human plasticity. In life, time and conflict sifted the personality endlessly, and in turn, one’s own character dictated the use of time and the response to stress; the moon acted on the waves that acted on the land. The shore will never be the same as it was before, and will forever be emerging as new patterns with new gifts to bear. Vacant hermit homes to stray leaves of distant trees to the occasional corked bottle.

John was ever changing, sometimes more rapid than what Hosea would think possible. It made it mighty hard to keep up with the beach’s story, composed of sand and silt and shells, when waves crashed against the beach mercilessly. The new patterns of the John confused Hosea, looking so familiar as when he first landed on the shore. 

Emotions are like colors. The sky and sea make blue, the sun makes yellow, and blood makes red- the facets of all life. Together, they create the world around. Water and light craft brilliant shades of grass everywhere, where flowers of all varieties spring forward, and the creatures of all creeds follow the chain of succession. 

“You’re worried.”

As one matures, their vocabulary of emotion develops with them. Rudimentary feelings spiral into grand masterpieces of falling outs and breakdowns if not careful. Simple things create depth and fullness to the heart; love and appreciation can curate lust or obsession, hurt and anger can breed a powerful vengeance, and fright and fury comes together to marry as worry.

The emotions only matured with the man who owned the eyes. John doesn’t deny it. 

Instead of speaking, he curtly nods the smallest degree and shifts on the slippery bark.

“You’re worried about Dutch…” Hosea speaks as he analyzes John’s face for misconceptions, and rights himself, “you’re worried about  _ Arthur. _ ”

John delivers another, somehow smaller, nod and wraps his arms around his middle in an imitation. His shoulders feel odd as they sometimes do- taut and shivering with listless energy- and the solitary embrace is as much as a self-soothing measure as it is a precautionary one.

The older gentleman is quite good at conveying what John’s tongue fails to do, and it feels just the same as saying it aloud himself. Hosea hums with understanding before he rocks backwards on the log to gaze at the midday sky. The noise is noncommittal, casually uninterested but prying all the same.

“They got him separate an’ alone,” John mutters. A sudden wave of self-doubt crashes at his shore, and he doesn’t know the attitude the man closest to Dutch for the longest has towards this mission, doesn’t know how he’ll take to criticisms of Dutch.

“They do, it’s foolish and blind.”

His voice is woven intricately like lace, fibers of dejection and ire and low grade defeat, worn worse for wear like a favorite pair of socks. It is a confusing mess that shall never be undone, if only destroyed, but John can tell outright that none of those threads compliment him, but rather Dutch. They adorn their recent relationship- tumultuous and unsteady- like a weathered wedding dress.

The words hardly offer insurance on his stray thoughts, and John shrivals a bit inside.

“But,” Hosea says, “so is most of everything we do, and we’ve made it this far.” His gentle eyes turn towards John, looking for his to exchange his calm for some anxiety, but John is watching the blue crustaceans at their feet. They skitter sideways, up and down the sandbanks, their funny looking claws waving in the air at one another in odd dances. 

“Don’t focus on it, they’ll be fine as always.”

Not for a moment do those words soothe the aching in his bones, the tautness of his muscles nor the hewn hollow in his stomach. 

For awhile longer, he sat at the log by the shore with nothing in his company except the strange crabs and his pack of cigarettes. Much of the day has passed, and it doesn’t irk him that daylight lay wasted at his feet as he considers the early morning gunfight enough energy used already. The rest of it seems to be trapped between his skin and bones, boiling dangerously. John is too preoccupied to worry about it much at all, or truly to pay it any mind outside his long spells of thought.

It had been several hours and no one has returned yet. The sun was starting to dip from the sky and balance with the stars, the rays of the new full moon already peeking from beyond the horizon. John’s body reacts with a shiver as he stares at the polarizing world around him of the sunset over the water and the stars hanging over the treetops.

As the sun had finally started it’s descent into the water’s skyline, John bolted upright at the sound of hooves making their way down the trail. A cigarette, just halfway smoked and still burning, fell to join the dozen of cigarette butts on the sand.

John’s legs didn’t function quite right, having been sitting awkwardly on the log for much too long, longer than what he would have normally been able to tolerate. The day has been odd as is, and the night feels even odder in its infancy. 

A few people had emerged from their workstations and bedrolls to greet the returning party as John had, but any semblance of excitement had died away when he realized that there were only two horses with an appropriate amount of riders.

Micah and Dutch both gleamed proudly from atop the mounts, Dutch already boasting about the transaction as if there was nothing out of the ordinary, like it was entirely normal to come up a man short.

Hosea’s face was stiff, and he turned to look at John from several feet away. His jaw tightened, and he worked his way over to him, mulling over the many reassurances he has at the ready. John doesn’t greet him with anything- his eyes keep watching the trail, darting through the gaps in the trees, looking for Arthur’s form to emerge.

In Hosea’s eyes, it reminds him of when John had just rolled into the gang and subsequently right under Arthur’s feet trying to become his shadow. The separation anxiety was palpable; whenever Arthur would be asked to ride with them while John was much too young to accompany them on missions, John would be found sitting quietly in their shared tent for however many hours it took for them to return. He was near the same as Arthur’s dog, Copper, who mirrored the young boy’s vigil.

A long time ago, John’s fear shrank as he began participating in jobs, contributing to camp, and utilizing all that he has picked up. In time, he didn’t need to cling to Arthur like a life preserver, not nearly as fiercely, but they were as close as water and land, perhaps even the mud and sand between.

“Don’t worry.”

The words did nothing for him, and his gaze turns towards Hosea.

“Arthur’s strong, he will be alright,” Hosea tries. John’s brows furrow and his whole face contorts as he scoffs.

“This is  _ Colm-” _ he emphasizes, voice hushed, gritting his teeth at the possibilities that filter through his head as fast as the words leaving his mouth. 

Simpering and setting his hand upon John’s shoulder, squeezing just enough to be felt, Hosea nods, “I know, and this is Arthur. He’ll show up.”

John had grown accustomed to the faint burning sensation that contact would grant him every now and then, but when Hosea’s palm and fingers imprinted on his body, he’s surprised he had stifled the sharp gasp that choked in his throat. His silence is taken as the conclusion to their short exchange, and Hosea heads off towards Dutch’s tent, likely to get some answers for himself and for John.

Stockstill, John continues to stand there, staring at the trees. It does not sit well with him that Dutch seemed content on foregoing any and all information on Arthur’s whereabouts, parading around supposed peace between his mortal enemy over the potential well being of his adoptive son.

By nightfall, neither man had mentioned Arthur’s absence, and all that Hosea could pull out of Dutch like teeth was that he likely split off early when it became clear that it was a diplomatic meeting, through and through, and gotten caught up with something on his own time.

Under scrutiny, the excuse fell apart between Hosea and John. It was hard to buy, considering that Arthur was the one that upheld safety precautions to a T and would never cut loose early simply because it looks as though all is running smoothly- and to continue an absence was rather odd of him as well. Reporting back to camp was essential for head count to ensure that no one was being tagged and the location of camp was uncovered. 

It may have gone over swimmingly for both Micah and Dutch, but knowing Arthur, as his brother, as his shadow since day one, John knows that something is wrong. Arthur isn’t out there taking the scenic route home, caught up handling matters important to him, or killing time. 

A heavy instinct roils in his core, building a pressure against his ribcage. The anxiety and worry that plagued him so endlessly earlier had shifted into an anger pointed like a dagger at both Colm  _ and _ Dutch. It pushed his feet out from beneath him, deciding for him what he is going to do next.

Old Boy lifts his head curiously as he draws near, not used to such late night riding unless others were to be roused. As the burning deep in his shoulder fades away to nothingness like the sun into the horizon to welcome the cool of the moon, a flush of cold shocks his system in realization.

The last time he had felt like this had been mere hours before he had found himself stumbling blindly into the woods, seeking a reprieve in isolation- and then he had gone into a state of dissociation that he couldn’t even remember where he couldn’t control himself.

John stops just before Old Boy’s grand head, staring blankly at those large, dark brown eyes mimicking him kindly. 

A string of his heart is plucked.

If he cannot help his state of consciousness, if he cannot control how he acts on instinct while he is something unbeknownst to him, then he’ll act preventively. 

He doesn’t untether Old Boy’s reins, but sets out on trail on foot. What his conscious cannot bear is slaughtering his trusting stallion in another mindless act. Arthur comes to mind, and he can vaguely understand the affinity towards his horses now.

He doesn’t tell anyone where he is going, and treads quietly past the sentries and through the thickets and brambles of the woods, hiding from the roads.

He knows where they had met, so he’ll start there and work on whatever he may find. Even as his muscles pull taut and argue with his continued movement,as his breath becomes haggard and sounds alien to his ears, as the world around him grows sharper and dulls in undulations of persistence, he keeps walking through the forest under the guise of the full moonlight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lyrics from 'bones of a rabbit' by young heretics.
> 
> took a week longer to get out but it is done and i'm determined to keep up with writing even if school and work are beating me down.


	5. i'm sending a message, of feathers and bone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another step is taken, closing the gap of three feet. Arthur has to tip his head back and blink his eyes rapidly to see through the tears to the beast’s face above him- and yet he takes no retaliatory step back. Still, Arthur feels no fear, none that can be detected with a deep breath through the impressive maws, drawing the air in and tasting it, but rather a wave of resignation takes place.
> 
> It’s worrying, but comprehensible. If anyone were to be knocked out, strung up, beaten, then rewarded with the sight of a wolf-man beast amidst a field of fallen men, no one would hold onto rationale at that moment. Hopefully, as much as it aches profoundly to be forgotten, Arthur won’t remember. 
> 
> It distantly echoes as a visage of the Devil himself and his realm. Arthur’s eyes look every bit of a man standing before Him. The pain, the frailty, and the defeatism leech out into every breath he takes.
> 
> John is not Him.

The shift and slide of tendons, old and new, wasn’t as exhaustive as it was before. It turns out that John’s body had grown accustomed to the traumatic changes, even if it will always remain unpleasant.

Five miles under foot beneath the stars and tree canopies had done him in. John’s head panged with unspeakable pain. Unable to keep himself at bay any longer, the wariness of his bones gnawing at the migraine that had bloomed through his skull, he had allowed the moonlight to wash over him, to stain his eyes and blur the light of the stars.

The blanket of moss sprawling along the roots of a great oak looked inviting as a place to rest his head. Making, stumbling his way through the undergrowth, fumbling fingers work at the buttons of his clothes in sloppy haste. Something he had picked up- any clothes he would wear before the moon strikes him down would be shredded by the growth.

After his shirt finally relinquished its grip from his shoulders, he threw it somewhere to the side before collapsing onto his back, all the air leaving him. Staring at the dappled openings of the leaves, he watches the stars twinkle down at him like winking eyes as his hands worked at his belt and trousers.

Normally, he’d rather be caught dead than frantically stripping himself bare in the dead of night out in the middle of nowhere, regardless of context. Now, thinking about it as he allows his shoulders to sink into the moss, he doesn’t remember immediately why he is in the middle of nowhere in a random stretch of forest.

The only thing that connects with the present is an overwhelmingly muted sense of urgency and a heavy weight in his chest. Then, realizing that he had lost himself for no discernible reason, a frown warps his face. 

He muses that there isn’t enough time to think, for the one time that he decidingly  _ wants _ to, before he falls unconscious, though he counters that by tensing through the first ripple of pain, and decides that it’s acceptable.

Judging by the stars location, eyes tracing the only constellations he knows, he can tell by the big dipper’s handle that it had been no less than two hours. The moon still weighed heavily in the sky like an observer, and the stars are all of its eyes.

Emerging uncertainly from the trees, he peers at the world like a wonder.

John still did not know what he was out here for, miles from camp. Everything appeared through the softened lenses of a dream. The stars twinkled brighter than usual, the air bullies past his body noticeably, and he couldn’t make sense of anything but isolation and panic. That was his first instinct; to know the whereabouts and wellbeing of his family unit. It turned out to be incredibly distressing to not keep a close proximity to them, as it turns out- the mere fact made his hair bristle uneasily.

A large hand, pointed claws and rough pads, grips the bark of a tree as he favors on it, expecting his hand to pass through it and to plunge into the earth. His eyes blink rapidly as he adjusts to the newfound light entering his vision. The roads were empty and full at the same time, laden with the ghosts of riders long gone.

Cautiously, he leans into the openness to get a better judge of the local population.

The dirt path reeks of horse and rider, of gunpowder and produce carts, and most importantly, under it all he can smell Arthur beneath the cluster of scents like a memory, deja-vu. It is a smell he is all too familiar with, having been draped in it for many years. Sharing tents, taking hand-me-downs, sleeping beside each other when nothing else was viable, Arthur’s scent has long since made an impression on him.

Arthur still smelled the same- a deep, earthy texture with fragrant hints of the soaps he used from time to time. Like saddle leather and a pack of cigarettes, or the firewood chopping block and freshly brewed coffee. Heat washes through his body, and John drowns in the misconception of existing within a dream, bathing in warmth revelling in Arthur’s familiarity brings. At the end of the wave is the sting of salt as John’s fur stands on end. He doesn’t know why, but it makes his fur bristle, his hackles stand upright, and his throat thrum with a low growl.

The peculiar sense of urgency comes back with a vengeance. His psyche tosses and turns in and of itself. The scent of his brother haunts him, and he slinks through the darkness provided by the tree trunks as he follows the trail. John’s body feels simultaneously heavier and lighter than before, crushing foliage and tall grass with unintended ease, and feeling as though he’s walking on clouds as the pricking of branches and thorns have little effect on him.

For once, he doesn’t encounter another soul on the road, not one that he noticed as he is so preoccupied trailing the scent that he doesn’t look up often. At some point, the trail winds away from the woods he had sheltered in, and he feels naked stepping free of the trees and brush to continue his search. In this world, it seemed as though only Arthur and him were the occupants, and somewhere, Arthur had gotten lost in the sprawling landscapes and rolling hills. They morph in and out of familiarity like an ever-changing dream.

He exposes himself in the open without a second thought, knowing that the trail was only growing fainter in the winds gusts. To his fortune, the sloping hills hide his hulking figure as he prowled across the grass plains, following the scent up until the equine scent concentrated and dwindled to nothing, leaving only the lingering smell of leather, metal, and Arthur. It twisted up the small hillside until it peaked at a cliff where his smell was potent.

John can see him, laying prone, aiming his rifle, protecting his flock. He sees the flattened grass of boot prints separate from the ones Arthur created getting into position. The hair ruffles through Arthur’s hair like a playful lover, and he adjusts his grip on the belly of the rifle as he lays motionless except the world around him. 

There were others, scents that made his lips curl back; sour with alcohol, reeking of chewing dip spit, and poor hygiene, smothering Arthur under the scent. Working his maws, John tries to catch the scent in his mouth to carry with him. The scent is solid in his senses, and he knows the direction they took him.

From the condition of the dirt beneath his feet is clean; no kicked up grass clumps, no skids of boot heels, nothing. Arthur was knocked out cold before he was taken away to ensure the least amount of problems for themselves.

He wouldn’t have been able to fight back- he was found oblivious, so dead-set on protecting his gang leader and brother in arms that he entirely neglected himself. Such typical behavior, it sparks a distantly angry spark in his chest, too outweighed by the pain that rips through him like a bullet at the thought of losing Arthur. 

Not much is to be remembered where he went after he trained his eyes on the grass with a fiery ire burning hot as a star in his stomach. The dark emerald green of the night time grass fades to black as his conscious slips from control. 

The dream becomes a nightmare in paces- darkness only allowing the pulsating and frantic anger to bleed through like waking emotions disturbing restful slumber, the occasional blip of wakefulness that he forgets as soon as his mind's eye shuts out, the feeling of no consequence holding John back from his own true nature. 

As if jolting awake, the next thing that holds steady in his attention was Arthur’s face. He’s upside down and every inch of his torso and chest is battered. There is a black eye framing eyes that flicker under their lids in response to his audible stimuli. His body, bruised and shoulder shot, tenses fruitlessly in tandem to his eyes’ rapid movement to the outside commotion.

It is an intrusive image that won’t disappear even as John's eyes flutter in shock. 

There were people coming for them. 

The man standing guard at the door had been dispatched as quickly as John could, although it became apparent that he had not done an efficient enough job in his haste. He later sees his poor work of the man- throat torn out and left mercilessly to asphyxiate on his own blood, the grunt’s noises drew the attention towards the cellar doors. Now, they crowd around the body of their fallen gang member, destined to be nameless and forgotten as soon as the night turns to day, and they clammer uneasily. They can tell that whatever had happened had not been orchestrated by human hands alone, but something more sinister. There were calls to look at the jagged flaps of skin, the depth of the wounds, the size of the scores.

The mumble bordering the door faded to background noise as John moved to ease Arthur’s body from its torturous restraint in an unconscious decision. Strong arms come to cradle his body like it’s nothing, John’s fur prickling the simultaneously feverish and freezing skin and inciting a shiver down his own spine. Holding the man close to his chest like an ill-kept secret, he quickly rips the ropes around Arthur’s ankles and tears the tether from the ceiling. A flurry of dusk and splinters rain from the ceiling with the loud clattering of the metal, but Arthur does little to stir. 

The clambering outside the door falters for a brief moment.

John stares at the body in his arms. Arthur scarcely moves. Arthur is paler than he’s seen him in a long time. He’s instinctively trying to curl into the warm, non-threatening form of John’s body. He’s trying to unconsciously shield himself.

There are shouts at the cellar door, and John moves slowly; always has been the one to digress at the worst moments. John gingerly sets him in the chair next to the candle, ensuring Arthur doesn’t collapse onto the floor with gentle claws and rough pads repositioning him just so, tentative towards wounds.

When the first O’driscoll grunt opens the door, John had been waiting for him on the other side. They didn’t hear the rising crescendo of a snarl as he watches through the cracks in the wood through their own chatter. As if the shift of the wood sent splinters through his heart, he’s certain that any soul within a mile heard the crying ululation that rips from his throat.

John sees red and nothing else before him. His skin crawls with tactile sensations he cannot focus on, heat rolling off his overworked body. Counting the bodies like sheep, John hunts freely amongst them, mindlessly. There are no precious shepherd dogs to protect them, no magic man to guide them to a fenced safe haven, only the rolling hills and trees they try to obscure their white wool of cowardice behind.

Only when he has exhausts all enemies reserves and watches the last one run, too far off to care about, does John feel the world around him. Senses emerge from where they had hidden in the fallout, hiding his delicate psyche from his own actions. 

The earth around John is littered with vain attempts to defend and success in assault. His victory is strewn about in ribbons of viscera and watercolor of ichor in the dirt. Some men were rendered indistinguishable from a victim of a freighter- nothing but rags and rips remaining of them.

The most were piled near the cellar door he had emerged from. Foolishly, they had all hovered right by the door, expecting a single intruder to take care of or maybe have some fun with until their boss showed up. Nothing of their imaginations sprang from the door, but of their nightmares. Some were mauled- those that he could immediately grab— others were crushed underfoot, and some scored open.

The world feels like a waking nightmare; John’s muscles are unused to the exertion they have been forced under, throbbing with his heart. The foreign feeling stretching across odd parts of his body makes sense in the pale moonlight- blood, clinging and drying to his fur in clumps. In some places, it still runs wet, rolling down the planes of his body until they dropped to the ground.

Even now, his body complains mightily at the world for damning it’s existence, forcing one leg in front of the other. Scouring, John treads between the bodies and lifts them off their fronts to peer into their emptied eyes, searching. 

He’s back to the first night he shifted. Blood is dripping from his muzzle and his hands are coated in a rich layer of another man’s bloods. His world is a haze of muddied senses and blurry stars. The are a scant amount of differences between the two incidents, and he finds more peace of mind with the atrocities he had just committed than the single one before. On one hand, one nameless man with presumed innocence is harder to face because it is inherently  _ wrong _ , knowing that he had done nothing but  _ exist. _ Here and now, these men are bad men working for a larger evil, one that even outweighs their sins.

First, he was only looking for Colm’s body, but it becomes an act of self-soothing as he internalized that all of the men were bad men who saw no moral compass. It satiated him to reaffirm the thought, but he processes that not a single body is Colm’s. A rough sigh makes its way out of his throat. The disappointment and anger is palatable through the haze like a lucid thought in a coma, bubbling to the top. Still, he continues- lifting the same corpses and turning them over to double and triple check. 

Rousing from unconsciousness didn’t feel real, as though he had merely woken from one dream to the next. Arthur understands perfectly that it isn’t the case, however, as a horrific agony sets across his whole person. His skull throbs as though he were being crushed and his whole body felt as though he were thrown around like a children’s toy.

Little light was offered for his eyes to make use of, the bouncing of the candle flame illuminating the table and the walls enclosing them. It’s a damp and dingy space he’s trapped within, one that he vaguely recalls between lapses of consciousness and torture. He remembers the barest sliver of detail; cruel words that have faded from the interspersed beatings he’s received and faint sensations of roughened hands and weightlessness.

The confusion comes over him like a cloud, as he is sitting upright in a chair and not suspended from the ceiling as he believes he was before. Somehow, Arthur had been moved about in a favorable fashion. No doubt was that it was an outside force, as O’Driscolls have not been renowned for their frequent changes in heart.

All the blood that has started to spill from his head back into his body makes concentrating all that much harder as if the inhibited movement in his locked legs and unstabilized shoulder wasn’t enough of an obstacle. Whatever had happened to get him into the chair and to get the heat off his back for the amount of time it took for him to get gone was to be left for another time.

All the years of being Dutch’s son and trusted gun has earned him more than his fair share of cuts and scrapes, and he’s seen more bloodshed for three lifetimes in just his thirty-odd years of living to have a solid grasp on field medicine.

Making use of the scant amount of lighting, his head swings down to look at the wound in his shoulder, now seeping blood again with a vengeance since the aggressive shift in position. Arthur examines the ridges of the wound carefully with his shaking fingertips, determining that it is impossible to tell without internal examination whether or not the bullet had gone clean through.

When his arm moves to fumble about the table for any instrument he can use as a rudimentary surgical tool, he finds extraordinary trouble trying to lift his arm in the first place. The appendage doesn’t register in his mind as his own, and he doesn’t process any physical sensations as skin meets the weathered wooden surface- only a benign heaviness that haunts every sinew and muscle in his body. Nevertheless, he prevails. 

By the time the wound had been effectively cleared of any remaining bullet and cauterized to the best of his ability, Arthur was having great difficulty trying to remain conscious. Several times he has had to stop to listen to the world, believing his ears to be playing tricks on him as he hears snuffling, deep and heavy as if from a bear, as close as a few paces from the cellar door before receding into the distance and back again.

Wiping a hand down his face, sweeping through sweat and grime, Arthur sighs raggedly. 

“Not my… fucking day,” he whispers to himself before he begins to valiant journey to his feet. It knocks the wind out of him, the resounding pain in his skull and the ache of his legs shooting up his spine. Whatever was lurking about outside was distracting enough for O’Driscoll patrols to avoid the cellar door entirely, as he had not seen the swinging light of a lantern or the hushed talk of grunts killing time once since he had woken up.

Regardless, that doesn’t mean that he is alone, and whatever that animal may be- be it a big dog to a grizzly bear-- can pose just as much of a threat to him now as would a camp of O’Drsicolls.

Creeping up the stairs and towards the cellar door, Arthur tries to open it gingerly only to discover something heavy laying atop it. It takes extra effort to move whatever it was to the side with his weakened shoulder hindering him. 

Moonlight, startlingly bright with a full moon, blinds his weary eyes momentarily. Only after fighting the nauseating wave of pain back down does he open his eyes. Just peeking out of the cellar, he finds himself face to face with not one, but several dead O’Driscolls in varying states of dismemberment. He locks up in surprise as he stares into the empty eyes of a man near him, head bent at an unnatural angle, triggering a visceral unsettlement.

Arthur feels nothing. It’s not as though it didn’t process in his state- it very much  _ did,  _ but as a baser interest and curiosity. It was like nothing he had ever seen before, and by some cosmic miracle, he had been spared.

They had almost all been flipped over towards the moon, displaying the full extent of their brutal ends. Some were filleted, other’s gutted, and other’s bled like pigs. Whatever struck them did so with such speed and ferocity that the look of terror and shock stayed permanently painted onto most of their faces.

Cautiously, using the scarce illumination of the full moon, he steps between limbs and bodies until he is free of the cellar entirely. His fixation lies beyond the carnage and towards the outline of his horse.

That’s when he sees it. A figure cut by the moonlight, stark and imposing even hunched over a corpse. It drags its claws over the body, delicately, picking the person from the ground with ease and bringing the slackened face close to its own for a long moment, simply staring.

Arthur freezes in place, dropped low to the ground in absence of cover. 

Whatever the beast was searching for in the man’s face wasn’t there, and the body slumps back against the earth with a solid thump. A loud breath escapes its chest, an expression of agitation. Its tail lashes the ground, as it’s lips curl back dangerously.

All at once, it’s head swings into Arthur’s direction, and he was in no position to respond fast enough to escape line of sight before he was pinned by the creature’s eyes. All available muscles tense and he braces himself for an explosion of energy, expecting to be charged at and mauled, waiting for something, anything at all.

Both parties freeze. 

Stark yellow eyes stare wide and unblinking at the much smaller man, as if the beast had been caught in an improper act and was attempting to reserve a sliver of dignity. There was a mysterious sense of personality to the creature not possibly characterized by the peculiarity of the being.

Dazed blue eyes match the other’s, uncertain of what is to come with the stalemate he’s gotten locked in. After moments stretch to minutes and neither being make a move toward or away from each other’s presence, Arthur’s eyes fall to the rest of the creature. It has fur nearly invisible where the trees create an impenetrable wall of darkness behind it, silhouette haloed in the moonlight. Even from a distance, a far amount of scars warp the curve of its muzzle and mar the surface of its torso savagely, visible even in the poor light.

Its eyes almost glow, a sickening mockery of a marigold with yellows and oranges like the fires of hell staring him down. 

In some part of his mind, he rationalizes that this being was none other than the Reaper, come down to take him away. Feasibly, it couldn’t be anything else but that- a dying man’s twisted visage. Arthur has heard tales of dying men and their visions they escaped, living to haunt a pub another day- how they fought tooth and nail to win against the spectre chasing them to take them away. The thought takes root in his mind like a parasite, and suddenly, the tension from his muscles melts away with his resolve as a pathetic chuckle wells up in his throat. The way Arthur sees it, he’s been long overdue for a visit, and he’s grown too tired through it all to keep running.

Sluggishly, mind thoroughly muddled and rationale non-functioning, he brings his hand up to palm at his eye tiredly. “Figured th’ Reaper would’ve raced t’get m’ass down t’hell,” he says, accent thick and slurring his consonants together.

The beast makes no movement, but a large breath leaves it’s chest, as if it was expressing it’s distaste at Arthur’s words. Arthur sets his jaw uneasily, a torrent of emotions spinning about him like a whirlpool, resignation and denial and determination and nothing and everything at once.

He’s long since accepted that he was going to end up in hell at the end of something gruesome. A lifetime of sins and blasphemy was enough to put the Devil himself to shame, it was truly astonishing the cosmic force of Karma hadn’t hunted him down already. 

Now, however, it seems his time has run out before he had expected it to. At the very least, he would have liked to tie up loose ends he has left hanging open for years, if not an entire decade or more. On top of that, the gang had fallen amongst hard times with turmoil and scarcity with stress ridling every member of the gang like the plague. Briefly, he thinks about the women of the gang with the trajectory of their luck, how they’re the most vulnerable to a potentially inevitable collapse.

His heart burns as he tries to think of where Jack will end up in time.

The creature takes a tentative step towards him, as if approaching a timid animal, ready to bolt at any moment.

There is no recognition in the dull blue eyes, no warmth and no fear. Permeating the endless depths of Arthur’s eyes is a marked sadness, a look of longing, glass stained with regret. They sweep over the foreign body before him, watching the jaws and staying cautious of the claws. Another step forward, and Arthur stands up straight as if ready to accept the approach.

The end of the road, the last step forward, the wolf-man stops before Arthur. It towers above him, jaw matted and stained with drying blood, still dripping from the spiked tufts of fur. The air is tinged with the iron composition of the blood coating the beast, and underneath it, imperceptible to Arthur’s senses, the fleeting stench of terror hanging over the bodies like a mooreland fog. On top of it all, sadness is palpable in the air, and it manifests in Arthur’s waterline as his gaze averts itself.

It’s familiar in the way that it is one of few emotions a dying man’s can be blessed with before meeting his end. Here, it isn’t anger, or fear, or joy, but sadness. There is a markedly deep well of regrets that Arthur had yet to tap into and drain. Here and now, however, there is an effort- a few wayward tears slip free from Arthur’s eyes and track through the dirt and grime coating his cheeks.

Unmovingly, the beast watches him with an acute understanding of the circumstances. In his eyes, there was no recognition from Arthur. It’s odd being taller than someone equivalent to an older brother. 

Another step is taken, closing the gap of three feet. Arthur has to tip his head back and blink his eyes rapidly to see through the tears to the beast’s face above him- and yet he takes no retaliatory step back. Still, Arthur feels no fear, none that can be detected with a deep breath through the impressive maws, drawing the air in and tasting it, but rather a wave of resignation takes place.

It’s worrying, but comprehensible. If anyone were to be knocked out, strung up, beaten, then rewarded with the sight of a wolf-man beast amidst a field of fallen men, no one would hold onto rationale at that moment. Hopefully, as much as it aches profoundly to be forgotten, Arthur won’t remember. 

It distantly echoes as a visage of the Devil himself and his realm. Arthur’s eyes look every bit of a man standing before Him. The pain, the frailty, and the defeatism leech out into every breath he takes.

John is not Him.

With utmost care, John tries to appear less than what the blood staining him makes him out to be. Raising a grotesquely large hand, tipped in deadly claws and coarse, calloused pads, John takes Arthur’s hand into his.

His heart skips a beat as the weight of Arthur’s hand settles into his palm. His skin is cold. The sensation is tangible through the vignette of a dream.

The contact shocks Arthur, his poor mind unable to handle the sudden reality of the situation that the contact exposed, and he faints. It’s not the most abrupt, as John watched his eyes flutter and felt his hand slacken where it lay on his palm, and he manages to catch Arthur before he hit the ground.

It became painfully clear that Arthur is incapable of remaining upright without help, as he teetered unsteadily on his heels, forehead resting on John’s sternum. Stabilizing him for a moment, framing his ribcage tenderly with his hands to prevent a total collapse, John peers around for a moment before he decides on the best route.

As carefully as possible, as to not startle the man nor jostle new wounds, John stoops lower to catch an arm behind Arthur’s knees and catches his upper body under his shoulder. It’s a sudden change of position, and at first Arthur protests with meager squirms and a select few strangled grunts. Then, the more John insists on carrying him as such, his resolve fully breaks, and his body sags back into the cradle of John’s arms. His head lolls to the side and his face pressed into the soft fur of his body, and that’s when the cold knot of dread forms in John’s stomach. 

He’d never allow himself this amount of help and comfort, not consciously. Visions of Devils and the belief that death is nearer now more than ever are strikingly common coming out of a body situation, especially kidnappings and hostage scenarios- John has been in Arthur’s place once before.

He has never seen such a collapse of personal constructs, however.

With just a few steps forward towards an old, worn down shack, John fears Arthur has lost the battle for consciousness again. He looks, watches his eyelids shift as his eyes darted around restlessly, but doesn’t try to rouse him. Rather, the agitated stomping of a horse wakes him, jolting Arthur awake. FIrmly tethered to the post, she had no choice but to stand there and bear witness to everything John had done.

Tentatively, he opens his arms fully to show the panicked creature that her owner was in one piece and back again; seeing each other, the horse relaxes into an anxious prancing, and Arthur settles into John’s arms at the sight of his mare.

“Lettin’ me say g’d-bye t’her?”

A harsh breath escapes John’s nose, a torrent of emotions swirling at the bottom of his throat- frustration, sorrow, guilt, elation. Without uttering a sound, with tender hands and utmost care, he rests the injured man atop his horse once again. That is when Arthur seems to snap out of his stupor, rousing to sit upright as best as he can. Peering at John blankily, he carefully takes the reins into his hands and feels the worn leather against the creases of his palm.

The look in his eyes is obscured, John finds, as their eyes level with each other now that Arthur was seated upon his mount.

Every inch of John’s muzzle is adorned with viscera and blood, dried in the night’s cool wind. A sense of reality passes over Arthur gently, like the breeze rustling loose hair. His eyes delicately pick their way down to the ground and crawls over the bodies in piqued weariness. The death roils in the air now, the bodies having set for long enough.

Arthur’s mind works over itself for a moment, the gears turning as his adam’s apple bobs with an uneasy thoughtfulness.

“...n’get m’guns?” he asks quietly through a choked cough.

Fear twists in John’s stomach even as Arthur fists the reins like it was his one lifeline to reality. Dutifully, foolishly, John doesn’t hesitate to retrieve the weapons from the storage shack, having noticed them previously in his rounds. As he turns away from Arthur, he feels his gaze burn holes into the back of his hide.

Upon return, he continued his intense stare; brows furrowed and jaw cinched shut. The belts jingle as they exchange hands, John watching them leave his possession.

Many a time, he would accept the title as a fool, even when the waters are muddy with complications and implications. In the back of his drowned mind, through thoughts of anger and relief and sadness, the sands of fear pull into the waters. In his own situation, John knows what he would do.

Arthur’s fingers deftly, even in a lucid state, open the barrel of his revolver and start to fill each chamber with a round. John’s eyes track each movement, body suspiciously still.

Trying to see through the disruption in the muddy waters is near impossible- Arthur’s eyes unreadable and the world intangible. 

John’s a renowned fool. If Arthur were to make up his mind, there would be no sinew in his body under his control to escape.

Arthur lifts his eyes to John once more, and the look in the sunken, blood-shot eyes was a far-cry from what he was expecting. There is no fear, not even in his scent. There is no anger to trace in the hard lines of his weary face. No familiarity either, no subtle lift of his eyes as they do when they land on John. But there was a mark of gratitude in how he stared.

Staring at this towering monster with night-black fur, ragged with scars and matted with blood, not flinching under the piercing eyes more gold than a coin in sunlight, Arthur blinks softly.

He sees John, and yet he doesn’t all at once. The corporeal form is perceived in full- a terrifying thought to behold- but what lies beneath is missed wholly.

The world feels physical as the wind shifts around his muzzle as his head dips in return, pulling at his fur like a curious child’s hands. Shock- at what remains undetermined- wakes him from his long haze of dissociation, and his eyes shine with attention he wishes he paid before. 

The grass shifts beneath the mare’s hooves as her head is directed, but Arthur’s head doesn’t follow with her. Their eyes are stuck together like the sun in the sky. 

Finally, tearing their eyes away, eclipsing to escape each other, Arthur’s wets his tongue uncertainly.

“Thank you,” he manages, voice haggard and distant as he becomes. His posture atop his horse declines exponentially the further down the hill he rides, and John watches them go; he’s quiet amidst the roaring silence. He wishes desperately that he could follow him, over the hills and through the woods, but the risk of sighting was too high the later the night gets as the closer the morning is. 

When Arthur becomes nothing more than a speck in the distance, John turns, staring at the bodies by his heels. They stare at him with hollow, judgemental eyes, scorning him with their silence. They mock his mind in their odd positions, how they are strewn about each other haphazardly, intimate in the embrace of death.

John’s stomach curls as though he might get sick, turning his great head towards the sky in solace. The burn that touched his cheeks was no longer, a quick glimmer of wayward hope that got through the extensive barriers he’s constructed. Overlain like willow in a basket, the minute holes cannot prevent everything from getting out.

The peculiar heat that hit his head when Arthur  _ saw _ him was abrupt and blinding. It settled on his chest like a placating warmth that eased him out of a deep slumber, a sensation he has never experienced physically yet he felt it  _ through _ Arthur. The deep thrum that reverberates from his chest cannot be contained by the fibers of wicker and willow.

The water comes through clear, strained and filtered through the mental barriers. Rough with grains of sand but transparent, John realizes how big of a fool he is.

A deep breath enters his lungs, stolen from the sky and free of rot and corruption. The bodies encompassing him don’t offer their remarks as he steps through them back into the trees. They simply watch his receding form in jealousy and disdain.

The air swimming through his fur is colder than before, the tension built into his muscles exerted and his body soaking in the chill to cool his burning body. It isn’t an unpleasant sensation, somehow separate from all he’s felt before. Having been chest-deep in mountainous snow banks, plunged into freezing rivers, he figures he knows what the cold would feel like warping around his limbs. 

In this body, however, there is no shock to his system. There is no sporadic shuddering to ignite warmth in his muscles, nor is there a raw uncomfortableness within him. The cool breeze wraps around him like a hug from a lover stepping through the door on a windy Autumn day, like the unfavored side of a pillow finally getting attention, the brush of the clouds over the land after too much heat.

Each step feels natural, a migratory route instinct in his brain, as John makes his way back through thickets and brush to rest. Chasing his own scent trail, it becomes harder to think about  _ anything. _

No energy is awarded to the internal war trying to wage fundless inside his head, his shame and resolution clashing. What part was which, he wasn’t certain. It may be his rationale or his personality roiling in shame at his actions and the ghastly visage he presents, while it could be either one applauding him and upholding his resolution and drive to protect his family, his brother.

Arthur had been in grave danger, and John demonstrated he had the gall to do something. It was reminiscent of when they were much younger, when John decided that he was old enough to contribute. Nearly brought the whole county’s police force to their backdoor in his young and reckless ignorance, but Dutch and Hosea let him keep his hide even if Arthur had grown an ounce more resentment.

Any secondary conversation that was happening in his head ceased at the nostalgia that blindsided him. A part of him yearns desperately like a sorrowful lover to return to the days of ‘yore to have the same blissful ignorance that he had then, the same expectations for life, and the same relationships.

Whole, innocent, and gentle before he went and fucked it all up in every way he could manage without meaning to do so.

The mental whiplash exhausts him more than what he intends, and by the time John had successfully tracked himself back to his clothes, he couldn’t muster any energy to clean any of the carnage off of himself. He could only hope that it would slip off with the fur jacket he was trapped inside of.

His clothes were haphazardly scattered everywhere, and he swears to himself that he will find a better method at discarding them. John can’t keep  _ almost  _ losing his clothes. It takes an embarrassingly exhausting amount of time trying to gather everything, and by the time he had located the last shoe, his body had started to give at the joints.

As if nothing had happened, he tracks down the indented patch of moss and settles his body into the hollow he had hewn for himself. Decomposing into the soil, slipping through the feathers of the moss, John’s last thought is of Arthur, where he was, and if he was alright. If he hadn’t begun to lose consciousness, he found himself longing to get up and find him to make sure he was still breathing. Watching him leave, Arthur had taken a piece of him to carry home as insurance, it feels, and if something were to happen, John would surely never recover the loss of his brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from "far from home (the raven)" by sam tinnesz
> 
> for john and his perception, when he shifts, its the first time that he is actively aware of himself, although there are times where he is still 'unconscious' or not in control and consequently cannot remember. he is confused and almost feels as though is dreaming, but the tactile sensations ground him, as well as arthur's presence. and john is heavily in denial about his emotions towards arthur/unaware of what they are. he has a slight moment where it hit him when arthur left but he's great at repressing his emotions
> 
> for arthur, it's more a break in reality kind of moment where he doesn't know if his eyes are playing tricks on him or not, up until he knows that the werewolf (john) is real, hence the reaction. he firmly believes he was dying and that john was the reaper coming to take him away. he doesn't know that the werewolf was john, as the identifying scars are smeared and filled in with blood and it is much too dark to see every detail.
> 
> it took me a hot minute trying to get this out as i've been incredibly busy between school and work and figuring out how to be an adult, but i'm working on it, i had not forgotten. i got rough ideas down for each chapter after this, so it'll be slow going but i am not lost

**Author's Note:**

> updates will be irregular, likely around once or twice a month. every chapter will have notes about some parts of the story or whatnot, and i'm always happy to answer questions! comments and kudos very appreciated
> 
> the title of the work and the title of the first chapter are from the song 'fear of the water,' by SYML.


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